non semper erit aestas
by Sultan Peppershaker
Summary: Credulous hope supports our life, and always says that tomorrow will be better. [Tibullus]
1. provehito in altum

A young slender nurse walked down the hall from the clinic, looking around the small groups of people, giving off a small sense of urgency to anyone who may have been watching her. 

Spotting who she was looking for, the nurse made a beeline for a tall, brown-haired man talking with a receptionist.

"Excuse me, Doctor Leonard?" she said, stepping up beside him.

"Yes?"

"Do you have a moment?"

"What's the question?" Dr. Leonard asked.

"It's… more of a situation."

"Well what is it?"

"A young lady in room 222."

"Is there a problem?"

"Well… yes. But she won't speak a word to me."

"How is she?"

"No visible physical trauma… she refused to be examined any further. Her vitals are just fine."

"Didn't get a name, then?"

"No."

"Did somebody drop her off? Maybe we could talk to them."

"No, she just wandered in here on her own… didn't have a cell phone, wallet, purse; nothing."

"Well… let's just try and say hello, then…"

Doctor Leonard walked with the light-brown-haired nurse to exam room three and went in. A blonde girl was sitting on the bed, rubbing her left elbow with her right hand. She snapped up to look at who had entered when the door opened, then sighed and looked back down with the timidity of a mouse.

"Hi, I'm Doctor Leonard," he greeted kindly, albeit a bit cautiously.

The patient wrapped her arms around herself.

"How are you today?"

The girl continued to dart her eyes around the room.

"How are you today?" Doctor Leonard repeated, more slowly this time.

The patient didn't move. Doctor Leonard sighed and looked over his shoulder at the nurse.

"Listen, you're in a safe place, here," he started, sitting down in a chair and facing the patient. "We're here to help you. But I need you to help me out first. Do you know your name?"

The patient looked over and parted her lips slightly. She trembled slightly as she tried to push a sound out of her mouth. Doctor Leonard leaned forward in his chair.

* * *

**Mmhmm. I've come up with more for you people to read. So, quick show of hands, how many of you remember me? Anyway. Drop a review. You know the drill.  
**


	2. keely

"I'm goin' out, Ma," Keely's sister Bonnie announced, heading down the stairs quickly.

"When will you be back?" her mother asked from the dining room.

"I don't know. Midnight, I guess. I'll call."

Keely sighed as her sister left the house, and rolled over onto her stomach, sliding her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She turned the volume up on her laptop, and typed out a response to Tia: _I think she said she was going to a party. Anyway, tomorrow night I should be able to stay over, so… what time should I come by?_

She hit "enter" and waited for a response. Eventually, her computer beeped at her, and showed Tia's message: _Your sister is really a party animal, isn't she? As for yourself, just stop by anytime after eight, I guess. Anyway, sorry to leave you hanging like this, but I've got to go. My mom is not pleased with my grades and is going to have "a talk" with me. See you tomorrow… assuming my mom doesn't kill me._

Keely let out a short breath and turned off her computer. Now left with nothing to do, she sighed and rolled onto her back again, staring at the ceiling, and frowned. Her ceiling wasn't flat, but rather covered in small bumps, like miniature stalactites. _Why would they design the house like this?_ she wondered. She always remembered how sometimes, she would practice hitting a tennis ball up and down with her racquet, and occasionally, she would hit the ceiling with the ball, and a few of those stalactites would detach from the ceiling and, without fail, land directly in her eye.

She eyed a tennis ball lying on the ground next to her bed, and picked it up and tossed it at the ceiling. Sure enough, a few of the powdery stalactites fell, and one landed on the lens of her glasses. She brushed it off, then picked her head up to see a few of the crumbs resting on her jeans.

She frowned again. _Why am I wearing jeans at this time of the year?_ she wondered. It was near the end of August… but the weather had just been unreasonably cold the past spring, and the temperatures were far below average for the summer. Keely hated the cold weather. August was hardly a month to be wearing jeans.

She briefly considered calling Phil, but then decided against it. She and Phil had not been getting along too well lately. She wasn't sure why, either. It was just that Phil was acting strangely as of late.

Not wanting to bother her mind with why Phil was acting so strangely, she decided to take a shower. Even so, though, this proved ineffective in getting her mind off of him.

_Was it something I did?_ she wondered, absentmindedly brushing some hair out of her eyes.

_No… I don't think I did anything wrong…_

_Maybe something I said? Maybe somebody's spreading nasty rumors about me?_

_Well that's just ridiculous. Phil wouldn't believe a word of that. He knows what kind of person I am. And if he heard any ridiculous rumors about me, he'd know they're just lies._

_Right?_

_Yes. Of course he would. Why would you even ask that? You know Phil. You trust him._

_I trust him._

_But that still doesn't explain why he's acting so strangely when we're together,_ she thought dully, as she used the blow-dryer on her hair.

_It's just been so long since we've last been out on a date. A real date. Not just going over to his house to watch a movie. Not just staying up all night here while mom and Bonnie are away._

_I miss those days._

_Why does everything have to change?_

Looking at her reflection in the mirror (which was obscured by a good deal of fog), she said to herself, "I just don't know."

She sighed and walked downstairs, to find that her mother had already gone to bed. She sat down, and just as she did so, heard her cell phone ring, and sprang to the table to pick it up. "Phil?" she asked, meaning to say _hello_.

"Uh, sorry, Hero, it's Beatrice," Bonnie said from the other end.

"Oh, hey Bonnie…"

"Listen, if Ma asks, tell her I'll be home at about two, instead of twelve, umkay?"

"Alright… got it."

"Hey, speaking of Phil, I haven't seen him around in a while… are you two okay?"

"…Yeah. Yeah, we're… fine."

"Mm. I guess I kind of figured you were… just haven't gotten the chance to have a discussion with the guy lately."

"Yeah, we're just… busy. You know. Busy busy busy us."

"…Yeah. Listen, I'll see you tomorrow… bye."

"Bye, Bonnie…"

Keely sighed. She just didn't know what was going on with Phil… but she remembered something that Tia had been talking about before.

"Maybe he likes another girl," Tia had suggested.

"Oh, that makes me feel loads better," Keely had scoffed.

"Sorry, I just… I don't know."

"…What if he is?"

"Oh, I'm sure he's not."

"But didn't you just say--"

"Keely, you have nothing to worry about. Phil wouldn't do something like that to you. I'm sure of it."

"Yeah… he wouldn't… would he?"

"Of course not. I know so."

"Okay… okay." This had seemed to calm Keely down a bit.

"Trust me, I've seen the way you two look at each other. He wouldn't do something like that to somebody like you."

"You really think so?"

"I don't think, I _know_. You two, are, like, perfect together."

Keely had smiled before remembering what she was worried about in the first place, at which point it quickly faded. "Then why has he been acting so weird around me lately? I mean, what changed?"

Tia had been silent.

"What… happened? I don't get it…"

"Neither do I… but I'm sure you'll find out..."

* * *

**Psst. Don't expect an update every day. I'm just doing this today because, well, I figured I might as well begin the story. Chapter one wasn't exactly... informative.  
**


	3. Summer

"Who was that?"

"Oh, just my sister," Bonnie explained, hanging up her phone. "She sounded kind of depressed."

"She should get out more," Bonnie's friend Jocelyn said. "Good party like this'll chase away those subterranean homesick blues…"

"Yeah, she… she really hasn't been herself lately. But I'm sure whatever it is that's going on… they'll patch it up."

"Mm…"

Bonnie sighed and ran her hand through her hair.

"You okay?" Jocelyn asked.

"Yeah… yeah, just… I don't know. My mind is somewhere else right now. I don't know."

"Oh… okay then."

Bonnie chuckled. "Sorry. Just… spaced out."

"Are you back now?"

"I'm back," she replied with a grin. "And speaking of which, hey Tory," she added, as Tory, Jocelyn's boyfriend, approached them.

"Hey, Bonnie," he greeted, as Jocelyn turned around and gave him a hug. "I've… got to admit, I'm a bit surprised to see you here."

"How's that?"

"It's just that… eh, I just haven't seen you out too much lately."

"Yeah," Jocelyn added, "you have been staying home an awful lot lately. It's… very unlike you, you know?"

"I know… I've just… been really busy lately," she sighed, brushing a rogue strand of hair behind her ear.

"I don't believe it," Tory said with a smile. "Busy with what?"

"You know… schoolwork… and whatnot."

"If you were busy with schoolwork… wouldn't your grades be getting _better_?" Tory joked.

Bonnie looked at him straight faced, and shook her head. "You know, I've been trying. It's just… I find it hard to concentrate…"

"Yeah, you used to get great grades," Jocelyn pointed out. "What gives?"

"I don't know. Just… been having a weird couple of weeks, I guess. Maybe I haven't quite been myself…"

Tory frowned. "I honestly don't know about you sometimes, Bonnie."

"I could say the same thing," Bonnie replied.

"Anyway, listen Bonnie, it was great to see you and all, but Jocey and I were just about to get up on out of here, so… we'll see you later, okay?"

"Okay. I'd hate to keep the two lovebirds away from their nest," Bonnie laughed. "I was just about to head off anyway… see you two later."

Bonnie walked off to her car and pulled out onto the street.

She never liked lying to her friends… and it got harder each time.

She figured she should stop; they wouldn't keep believing her for much longer.

_Right?_

Bonnie turned up her Good Charlotte CD as she drove past Phil's house.


	4. phil

Phil sighed as he tossed and turned in his bed, unable to sleep.

_Why? Why now? Why now, after we've been here so long?_

_It's not fair. It's just not fair._

Just recently, Phil's dad had begun to work on the time machine. And, perhaps even more amazingly, had begun to make progress on it (because of course, Lloyd was not at all famous for his craftsmanship on the time machine).

But now with the very real possibility of leaving looming ever closer, Phil began to act differently around everybody, something Keely took a special notice of.

Phil shook his head. He didn't want to think of Keely now. He looked at the wall opposite his window. On it was the shadow of a tree branch, which looked like the skeleton of the wing of a bat.

_Wings… _

…_that makes me think of…_

_escapism disappearing invisibility ghosts spirits fate faith love pain emotion_

A slew of other words jumped into Phil's mind in a split second, but eventually, they all led to one thing, one idea:

_Home_.

Home, wherever it happened to be for him.

_Home in 2121?_

No… no that didn't seem quite right.

_Home right here? Right now?_

That still didn't feel quite right either.

_Maybe… just maybe… it's… it's…_

Phil never finished that thought, as he fell asleep soon after it drifted into his mind.


	5. boulders

Bonnie sat down, leaning against the brick building of the west wing of her school, watching most of the other students go off-campus for lunch. Bonnie usually stayed on-campus, choosing to wait until she got home to eat her lunch (after all, she never trusted the people in the kitchens).

"Well hey there, Bonnie," Tory said, sitting down next to him.

"Hey, Tory… where's Joss?"

"She happens to be taking a test for Johnston right now…"

"Oh… that sucks."

"Yeah, pretty much." A few seconds of silence passed until Tory announced, "It really needs to start getting warmer. It's never this cold in September."

"I don't really mind it, actually," Bonnie muttered, tugging at the sleeves of her hoodie.

Tory looked over at Bonnie, then said, "Okay, what is it? What's bothering you?"

"It's nothing. I'm fine."

"It's obviously something."

"It's nothing."

"Come on, don't lie to me."

"Okay, it's nothing that concerns you."

Tory sighed. Whenever Bonnie set up her walls, it was no easy task tearing them down, and it was nearly an impossible task when facing her one-on-one. "Okay… whatever."

"It's just… I'm… I'm just not myself, okay? I've just had a shitty few weeks. Family problems, boyfriend problems, school problems, work problems… I'm just a problem child, I guess. Nothing that you could really help with…"

_Well, actually it's probably been a lot longer than just a few weeks,_ Bonnie thought.

"You and Chris?"

"Yeah, we're… kind of separated right now."

"Oh…" he said, not really knowing what else to say. She sighed and looked over as his cell phone buzzed. Checking it, he announced, "Hm… Looks like I've got to go now. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Bonnie muttered.

She yawned and tried to fall asleep, as she had been unable to the previous night. However, the sidewalk proved an uncomfortable bedspread for her, and she was unable to get any sleep there either.

_Maybe I can sleep after the test in Chemistry_, she thought dully, as she sauntered to her next class.

_I just wish I could get a decent night's sleep for once._


	6. no man's land

_Everybody-_

_First off, thanks, Mom. I got the package today… I love the song "The Green Fields of France"… I swear, when I die, I want them to play that song on the pipes at the funeral._

_Anyway, it's official, I will be coming home in November… I haven't been extended. I'll finally be able to get out of this hellhole, and it can't come soon enough! It's been forever since I've seen everybody… I can't wait… but it looks like I'll have to._

_Well, I really don't have much time right now, so I'm going to have to cut it off here. Tell everybody I said hi._

_Love,  
Cpl Ashley Teslow_

"Hey, Bonnie," Keely said, setting the letter down and picking up her keys, "if Mom asks where I am, tell her I headed over to Tia's, okay? And, uh, looks like Ash wrote you a letter…"

"Got it," Bonnie said, groggily. She was lying on the couch, on the verge of falling asleep for the first time in over thirty-six hours.

Keely, seeing this, muttered, "Never mind, I'll leave a note."

"Thnks…" Bonnie said, and almost instantly fell asleep afterwards.

A few hours later, she woke up to her mother talking about her grades.

"Three C's? You have a D- in US History? Bonnie… you've got to pick these grades up. This isn't like you at all…"

"I will, Ma," she said, groggily. "Don't sweat it."

"I won't be sweating it, because until these grades get better, you won't be going out anywhere and staying up late at night."

Bonnie let out a breath. She'd seen that one coming. "I'll get 'em up. You know me. I always pull through. I just aced a test in chemistry today, so that grade should already be coming back up. Alright? Now, just… stop… hassling me about it, okay?" she asked, and then headed up to her room.

Closing and locking the door, she fell face-first onto her bed and tried to sleep. However, just the action of going up to her room was enough to wake her up. She went over to her desk and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her hair was a mess.

She looked down at the three pictures sitting in front of her mirror. On the left, a picture of her and Keely at the entrance at Disneyland. On the right, one of her and Ashley at her graduation from basic training at Parris Island, South Carolina. In between those two pictures was one of her and her (now ex-) boyfriend, Chris. She reached out to that one, brushed the frame lightly, then sighed and set it face-down.

She soon found her eyes threatening to tear up, so she walked away from her desk and laid down on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling.

She decided to read the letter Ashley had written to her, hoping that would cheer her up, but after reading it, she just found herself even more depressed, and feeling more alone than before.

"Life is such a slut," she muttered to herself, looking down at her arms, folded in her lap.


	7. balboa county dreaming

"I just don't get it," Keely complained. "He hasn't even said so much as two words to me in the past four days…"

"Well, _some_thing must have happened," Tia said. "He wouldn't just avoid you for no reason."

"I know, it's just that… it's killing me, you know? I mean… oh my god, Tia, what if he's going back to 2121?"

"Where?"

"Uh… 2121 Maple Systems Road… it was his… address before he moved here…" Keely stumbled across the lie, hoping Tia wouldn't get suspicous.

"Oh, so you think he's moving?" Tia asked, taking the bait. "I don't know, wouldn't he have told you that? That seems like something he would want to let you know."

"Well, what if he didn't because he didn't want to ruin our last few days together?"

"Well, if that was the case, he would've left you in the dark, but spent _more_ time with you, not less."

"…You're right. He wouldn't be avoiding me… but still… I'm worried."

"Ever try… I don't know, talking to him?"

"Yeah… a few times…"

"You know, Keely, if at first you don't succeed--"

"Eliminate all evidence that you tried in the first place, I know. You know, that's not really helping me right now."

"Not… exactly what I was going to say, but… whatever."

"I don't know, I guess I could try calling him tomorrow…"

Tia rolled her eyes. "That's what I've been _trying_ to _tell_ you for the past thirty minutes! I knew it was possible to be blinded by love, but to actually be struck stupid by it is new to me."

Meanwhile, Phil was off talking about the exact same thing to a friend of his own.

"I haven't even talked to her in a few days," he complained.

"You know, with the possibility of moving growing ever more apparent," Via said, "you might want to let her know what's going on as soon as possible…"

"I know, I know, it's just… I mean, we both knew that I might have to move back to… Colorado… but… we both just… kidded ourselves that it wouldn't ever happen…"

"And… you're still not one hundred percent positive you're moving back, is that right?"

"That's right… that's why I haven't talked to her, I'm spending all my time trying to convince my parents that we shouldn't move away from here…"

"Well… I applaud your efforts, but… Phil, I don't know if your parents are going to base their decision on what you say to them. I would just spend more time with Keely if I were you… Why not spend as much time together while you still can, right?"

Phil had stopped listening to Via, as a thought had entered his head. "Thanks, Via, but I think I might have an idea of my own…"

Via blinked a few times. "O- Okay, then…"

"I'll see you later, Via," he said, and walked out to his car."

"See you…"


	8. love and pain

"_The clouds that hang over me_," Keely sang to herself, "_Forming pictures and scenes… An angel, she comes to me… And explains what it all means, and she says to fly…_"

She took a notebook she had borrowed from Bonnie a few days ago and headed up to her sister's room. "Hey, Bonnie," she said, noticing the door was cracked open, and letting herself in, "just came to give you back your psych notebook…"

"Thanks," Bonnie coughed.

Keely looked at Bonnie and raised an eyebrow. Bonnie was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed, holding a pillow to her chest. "You okay, Bonbon?" Keely asked.

"Yeah, I'm… I'm swell."

"Uh… huh…" Keely said, tossing the notebook at the foot of the bed. "Anyway, I-…"

Keely's eyes fixed themselves on a small red spot on the pillow, just below Bonnie's arm.

"Um… did you… want something else, or…?" Bonnie trailed off.

Keely slowly walked over to Bonnie's bed, frowning. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Because I don't believe a word of it," Keely said, then yanked the pillow from Bonnie's arms, after a small struggle.

Keely recoiled after seeing the red streaks on the pillowcase. "Oh my… Bonnie…"

Bonnie leaned forward and looked down, not saying a word.

"I… how… could you? Why?" she asked, yanking at Bonnie's arm to look at the damage. "Four cuts… all in a row… Bonnie, why? What the _hell_ could possibly compel you to do this to yourself?" Now quivering with rage, she put her hand under Bonnie's chin and lifted it, looking into her eyes. "Answer me. Now."

Bonnie sighed. "Short answer? It makes me feel better."

"What? That's bull!"

"Science disagrees… cutting releases endorphins, endorphins act as analgesics -- they reduce pain, affect emotions…"

"There are plenty of ways to deal with pain, Bonnie, but this is not one of them! You're… you're killing yourself by doing this, you know…"

"Quite the opposite, actually. This makes me feel… like I can actually function… it makes me feel alive. Funny, isn't it?"

"No! I'm not going to stand idly by while you destroy your life!"

"It's not destroying my life," Bonnie said, her voice quivering. "It… helps me… I mean, I wasn't trying to off myself or anything…"

"I don't care! Thousands of other, healthier things could do the same thing. You may think you're helping yourself now, but trust me, you're not."

"Keely, I know what I'm doing, I know the risk involved," she replied, now sounding a bit worried, "and--"

"You do _not_ know the risk involved! You wouldn't be mutilating yourself if you did!"

"Keely, I--"

"I'm telling Mom. You leave me no choice."

"Keely, no!" Bonnie said, now fighting back tears. "Please, no!"

"I'm sorry, Bonnie, but this is for your own good," she said.

"Keely, don't! Please… please don't."

"I have to. I'm not going to let you do this to yourself. You're my sister, Bonnie. I love you… I'm not going to let you destroy yourself like this."

"Keely, please… don't tell Ma… don't… I'll tell her! I'll tell her! I will, I swear I will!"

Keely frowned. "What?"

"Just let me tell her… please… I'll tell her, I will… when I'm ready…"

"I don't know about that, Bonnie…"

"I'll tell her! Just please… let me tell her."

Keely sighed. "Okay… if you promise me that you'll tell her, I'll let you."

"I promise you, I will. I will…"

"Okay then… don't even think about doing anything stupid until you tell her, then. Okay?"

"I won't… I won't…"

* * *

"**She Says to Fly" - PJ Olsson**


	9. Hope

Phil sat on the roof outside his window, looking up at the night sky. It was a clear night; thousands of stars danced in the sky above him.

"Hey, Phil," his sister said, from his room.

"Hey," he said, glancing back at her.

"So… do you know if we're moving or not?"

"I'm still not sure. But… Dad seems to be making some real progress on that time machine…"

"I know…"

Pim walked out onto the roof and sat down. Looking up at the sky, she said, "Believe it or not, I can understand why you like to come out here… it's so quiet… peaceful…"

"Yeah… I could stay out here for hours…"

A short silence fell over them, until Pim broke it.

"I don't really want to leave, either…"

Phil raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

"No… I kind of like it here. It's just… I don't know, nice here. Back home, it was so… chaotic. You know?"

"Yeah… I get what you're saying…"

"Plus, it's so much easier to take advantage of people here, what with my superior knowledge…"

"I figured that had something to do with it…"

"Well, I guess I'm just predictable, then."

"You don't think they'll make us move back, do you?"

Pim sighed. "I hope they don't… but… I don't really know…"

"Guess we can only hope…"

"I guess so…"

Phil sighed.

"Anyway, Phil… guess I'd better be off. I think I have some homework or something that was due yesterday that I should get to work on…"

"Okay then…"

Pim took one last look at the starry sky, then headed back inside. A few minutes after she left, his mom came to his window.

"Hey, Mom," Phil said.

"Hey, Phil."

Phil sighed. "Are we… Is Dad… Are we moving back?"

"I… honestly don't know. He has been working on the time engine a lot recently… I don't know how much he's gotten done on it, though."

"I… don't want to go back."

"I know, Phil…"

"I like it here."

"So do I…"

"So why would we have to move back?"

"…That's exactly it, isn't it?" she asked. "We would _have_ to move back… We may want to stay here, but…"

Phil sighed. "It just doesn't make sense…"

"Well, Phil, when you grow up, you'll realize that barely anything makes sense…"

Phil smirked. "Thanks for the comforting words," he said, sarcastically.

"Anyway. It's late… don't stay out here too long, okay?" she said, and left his room.

Phil looked down the street, and saw that the light in Keely's room had been turned off. He sighed, and headed inside to get some sleep.


	10. Fall

On a Friday night, Bonnie wrung her hands nervously, rocking back and forth in her chair.

"Are you okay?" Keely asked, as she came into the room.

"Huh?" Bonnie asked, her voice cracking nervously.

"I asked if you were okay, but I can clearly see that you're not…" Keely walked over to her sister, and looked at her closely. "Your eyes are bloodshot… you look tired…"

"Oh, no, I'm fine," Bonnie said. "I'm perfectly fine."

"Uh… sure…"

Keely shook her head, and turned to leave, but Bonnie reached out and latched onto her arm. Keely grimaced.

"Don't leave," she whispered.

"What?" Keely asked.

"Don't leave me here… I want you to be there…"

"What? For what? When?"

"When I tell Ma… please… could you just stay here?"

Keely felt a sympathetic pang for her sister. "I… okay. I'll… be here when you tell her."

"Thanks," Bonnie said, trying to smile. She failed, though, and proceeded to look around the room. "I can't believe this is going to be the last weekend of summer… of course, it feels like autumn already, but…"

"Yeah… it's already, what, the twenty-first?" Keely asked. Bonnie nodded. "Time flies…"

"It sure does…" Bonnie sighed. "Do you know what the next day we get off from school is?"

"I do not…"

"Hm…"

Bonnie straightened up as she heard the front door open. "Ma? Is that you?"

"Yes it is," she heard her mother answer.

"Well… could you come in here for a minute? I've got something I need to talk to you about…" A few minutes later, Mandy entered the room, and Bonnie sighed.

"So, what is it you need to talk about, Muffin?" she asked.

"I… You see, I, um… oh, you're going to hate me…"

"Honey, I could never hate you… for anything," Mandy reassured her.

"Never say never…" Bonnie muttered.

"Come on, what's on your mind?"

"I… I don't know where to start… other than I'm really sorry for what I did…"

Bonnie sighed and pulled up her sleeves, revealing the faint scars on her arms.


	11. loveandpain

**Psst. By the way, if you check my profile, you'll see links to the songs that have been featured in the story.**

**Not that I condone illegal downloading and file-sharing in anyway. Don't even think about messing with the RIAA.**

* * *

It was Monday, the second day of autumn, as Bonnie told Jocelyn about what happened a few nights prior. "Anyway, I'm actually feeling a lot better now… Feels like a huge weight was lifted off of me… you know how people make you keep a secret, but you're just dying to tell somebody, and then you tell, like, your dog or something, and it makes you feel better because you told somebody? That's what I'm feeling…"

"Well, I don't really know if I've ever told my dog a secret…" Jocelyn muttered.

"Here's the weird thing, though," Bonnie told her, ignoring her statement completely, "she didn't get pissed at me."

"Well… is that really any surprise? I mean, she's your mom… she'd just want you to get better. I wouldn't expect her to get mad at you…" Jocelyn explained.

"I guess you're right, Joss, it's just that… I don't know, I guess I just expected the worst…"

"So… is she going to send you to a doctor or something?"

"I'm not sure… I'm not sure if she's even decided what to do. I bet she probably will, though. I guess we'll see, though."

"_Nil admirari…_"

"What?"

"Be surprised at nothing, Bonnie."

"Hm… powerful words, Joss. Powerful… foreboding… slightly creepy words."

Jocelyn laughed. "Listen, I'll see you later, okay, Bonnie?"

"Okay, then," Bonnie said, and hopped in her car and drove home.

Meanwhile, Keely was at Phil's house, having a discussion with him.

"Phil… would you just tell me what's up with your strange mood swings lately? I mean, one week, you won't say a word to me, the next, I can't even go two seconds without getting a call from you…"

"I'm sorry, Keely, I'm just… confused right now."

"About what? Wait… you're not gay, are you?"

"What? No, no!" Phil sighed. "My dad has been working on the time machine lately… and I'm not sure if we're going to move or not…"

This news struck Keely like a brick. "M- M-… Moving?"

"I'm not sure if we will… but I promise you I'm going to make the most of our time together, okay? Because I'm not sure if it'll be suddenly ripped away from us one day or not…"

"Moving? You- You're moving?"

"I didn't want to tell you… I really didn't, because I was afraid it would ruin what could be our last few days together…"

"I… I can't believe this…"

"I knew I shouldn't have told you…" Phil sighed in defeat. "Please, Keely, try not to think about that… I'm not even sure if we are moving or not, so… just don't think about it…"

"How could I not?" Keely asked.

"Just focus on us… live in the moment… If you look to our future, you might ruin our present… and that's all that really matters, isn't it? The present…"

"I… guess so…"

"Time is just an illusion, after all. Right now, all there is, is you and me," he said.

Keely sighed, looked up at him, and feebly smiled. "You and me," she whispered.

"And this," he added, and pulled her into a kiss. When he pulled away from her, she had a large, somewhat goofy grin on her face.

"That's the face I love to see," he laughed.

"Thanks, Phil… can I go run to my house really quick? I'll be right back…"

Phil chuckled. "Sure, go for it."

"'Kay, Phil! Be right back…"

Keely ran down the street to her house, singing happily to herself. She entered the house, and saw Bonnie sitting at the table with her head buried in her arms.

"Bonnie?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

Bonnie let out a quavering breath and tossed a piece of paper at Keely. Keely raised an eyebrow and picked it up. She managed to read the first few sentences before dropping the letter.

_We regret to inform you that on September 21, Cpl Ashley Teslow died while serving her country in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. Words cannot convey our sorrow._


	12. algor mortis

Keely stared rigidly at the small table at the head of the room, on top of which lay an American flag, folded into a triangle, among other memorabilia and keepsakes from her deceased sister's life. The flag had been presented to her "on behalf of a grateful nation" at the end of the military funeral that had been held for her a few days prior (Keely had cried as the bugler played "Taps").

Keely happened to be at a memorial service, which was held for close friends and family, and so that there would be a more private service than the custom military funeral, where even a few Californian members of congress had arrived to pay their respects.

Next to the table, was a podium, at which Bonnie was standing, in the process of ending a speech.

"…somehow I know it's just going to be so different in so many ways now… To realize the value of a sister… ask somebody who doesn't have one. To realize the value of ten years… ask a newly divorced couple. To realize the value of four years… ask a graduate. To realize the value of one year… ask a student who has failed a final exam. To realize the value of nine months… ask a mother who gave birth to a stillborn. To realize the value of one month… ask a mother who gave birth to a premature baby. To realize the value of one week… ask the editor of a weekly magazine. To realize the value of one hour… ask the lovers who are waiting to meet. To realize the value of one minute… ask the person who just missed a train, bus, or plane. To realize the value of one second… ask a person who has survived an accident. To realize the value of one millisecond… ask a silver medallist at the Olympics.

"Time waits for no one… treasure every moment you have. You'll treasure it even more when you can share it with someone special…

"To realize the value of a friend… lose one."

Keely rested her head on Bonnie's shoulder when she sat back down next to her. "That was… hauntingly beautiful, Bonnie," Keely said. Then, just as Ashley had requested, a man played Eric Bogle's "The Green Fields of France" on the bagpipes.

Later, back at their home, Keely muttered, "I don't even know if I believe in heaven, Bonbon, but… I really hope there is, and that Ashley's watching MST3K reruns and entertaining the masses there…"

Bonnie smiled. "Yeah… that'd be nice…"

Keely sighed, a distant, wistful look in her eyes.

"The fear of death confounds me…" Bonnie muttered.

"What's that?" Keely asked, having not really been paying attention.

"The fear of death confounds me…" Bonnie repeated.

"Oh… so… what do you mean? I mean, like, well…"

"I don't know… just a lot of people there… I could feel something about them, you know? I could feel their fear… their fear that someday, they will be in Ashley's position, you know? Sort of like a… a _sum quod eris_ kind of thing."

"Huh?"

"It literally means 'I am what you will be'. It's usually written on gravestones as a reminder of death, a _memento mori_, if you will…"

"I actually know what that one means…" Keely announced proudly.

"Thanks to _The X-Files_," Bonnie added, rolling her eyes. "Anyway, it confuses me how so many people are afraid of death. After all… everybody dies at some point… like it or not, at some point, that will happen to everybody."

"It's just that we don't know what comes after death, though… that's what scares them. Sort of like… the whole idea how it's not the fall that hurts, but it's when you hit the ground. They're afraid of what they'll feel after they hit the ground…"

"Well, a lot of people believe in a heaven and hell… or reincarnation… or nirvana or what have you… they're usually less afraid of dying… but some people… it just… scares them to death, if you'd pardon the pun…"

"The unknown is threatening to us… anyway, I take it that you're not afraid of dying?"

"Not particularly…" Bonnie answered. "I live my life my way, so I can hold my head high. If there's a heaven or hell, I'll accept where I end up, since it's the way I lived that got me there. If there's an afterlife… then the whole cycle will begin again, won't it? And if there's nothing after this… then… well, what? I didn't exist before I was born, so it wouldn't be any different after I die, would it?"

"How could there be nothing after life?"

"If everything science tells us is right and there's absolutely no such thing as the spirit or soul," Bonnie said.

"Not existing is just creepy," Keely shuddered. "There has to be something after life. There can't just be nothing, that would be too… weird."

"Agreed, but I'm just trying to look at it scientifically. Accept all possibilities of the unknown. Look at everything with an open mind…"

Keely nodded.

"Are you afraid of death, Keely?"

"Sometimes. Like when I think about everything at night… that creeps me the hell out. I don't know. Not being here just seems too weird to me. I don't think I'm going to die. I think I'm too stubborn to die. I wouldn't care too much for death."

Bonnie smiled. "Too stubborn, huh?"

"Exactly…"

"Just don't become deluded by your own fantasies, eh? _Mors vincit omnia_…"

Keely frowned before saying, "Would you stop with the Latin already?"

Bonnie laughed. "Sorry, no more… I blame my friend. She just randomly speaks in Latin sometimes…"

* * *


	13. post mortem, post scriptum

Keely sat at her desk, writing away on a piece of paper.

_Monday, 1 October 2007_

_Dear Ashley-_

_I didn't think it would be, but the sun is shining very brightly today… and I'm wondering if you had something to do with it? I mean, you always tried to make it shine here whenever you could, so there is no stopping you! _

Keely half-attempted to smile, but she wasn't quite sure if she could yet.

_In the quiet-most of the night, I found myself hoping for some kind of way for you to still be out there. Maybe just a little sensation in me… a white feather on my pillow (Okay, I know, I was hoping for a miracle. Is that really so wrong? You always went the distance, Ash.)…_

This time, Keely gave a heart-felt smile.

_I began to read and reread all the letters you sent me. I also read all the letters that people had sent us. All your friends had sent us letters, telling us about you and them and you being gone and wishing us the best in getting through this tough time. Such an outpouring of condolences and love! And it was there that I found you… _

_You left us the biggest message of all in your death, Ash. I didn't realize it until last night. You brought us all closer together, subtly reminding us to 'play nice', and to stay nice to each other. Those are the rules of the road: treat others nicely and with respect - be human. And when you think you can't reach out any more to people, stretch a little further. We've got to be the good people we're meant to. _

_You were a gift to us, Ash. One I will cherish until I join you in that big sleep, and even after. I think I'm going to write back to each and every one of your friends that oh so kindly wrote us letters._

_Oh, and I miss you._

_Unbelievably._

_You had to leave far too quickly and far too soon, but… you left us a great gift._

_When I die  
I'll be fine  
'Cause I know  
You're always there  
When I die  
I'm alright  
'Cause I know  
You'll be there  
You are home_

_Love forever,_

_Keely_

She smiled and set the letter in a drawer in her desk. She headed downstairs to find Bonnie at the table, reading all the letters that had been sent to them.

"Hey Bonbon."

"Hey, Keely," Bonnie said in a wispy voice. "Have you read these?"

"All of 'em," Keely replied. "Most of them three times or more."

Bonnie smiled. "People are a lot better than I expect them to be… I guess at least I'll have something to read Thursday night if I start to feel lonely…"

"Yeah, sorry that I'm leaving you alone here, but…"

"Well, no, don't be sorry… just have a good time with Tia. Don't think about me."

"Well… I'm sorry anyway," she said, sitting down next to her sister, and picking up a letter from a girl that had met Ashley during her senior year.

* * *

"**When I Die" - New Found Glory**


	14. in vino, veritas

Bonnie sat alone in the house, listening to "We'll Meet Again" by Vera Lynn.

"_We'll meet again… don't know where… don't know when… but I know we'll meet again some sunny day…_"

The song came to an end as a knock sounded at the door. Bonnie hopped up to get it.

"Oh, hey, Phil," she said, leaning against the doorframe.

"Hey, is Keely around?" he asked, tugging at the sleeves on his jacket.

"Sorry, she's at Tia's…"

"Oh…" Phil said. He wasn't too thrilled at the prospect of having to talk to Keely in the vicinity of Tia.

"You look troubled," Bonnie stated.

"Probably because I am…"

"Wanna talk about it?"

Phil sighed. "Might as well."

* * *

"I mean, I just feel like she's trying to push me away, you know? She's been so distant," Phil lamented. 

"You think so?"

"Yeah, and what's more is that I think I know why, too. It's because, Bonnie… because I told her that I might be moving."

"You might be moving?"

"Yeah, and I think she's pushing me away because I told her… and I just feel, so… argh… I knew I never should have told her…"

"Well, you were honest with her, right? I mean… that's good… better than lying to her."

"I guess so… ugh… You know what we need?"

"What?"

* * *

"I tell ya, Bonnie," Phil said, "Keely's mad at me because I'm moving." 

"Might be moving," Bonnie corrected. "You said you didn't know for sure."

"Ahh yeah… but still. She's… she's holdin' it against me," Phil said, pouring himself another drink.

"So where did you manage to find this?" Bonnie asked, holding up her glass. "Because I've lived here for… practically all my life and I've never found this."

"Just gotta know where to look, Bonnie."

A few drinks later, Phil was lying on the couch, and Bonnie was leaning against the table where the bottle sat, now a bit less than half-empty.

"I'm tellin' ya, Phil," Bonnie said, "there's no way she'd be mad at you for that. Dude, she loves you. I know it."

"Yeahhh… she's great. Maybe we should call her," Phil suggested.

"Nahh. She's probably watching a movie or somethin' with Tia."

Phil sighed. "Keely is just… amazing. That's all there is to it."

Bonnie laughed. "You are… whipped! Hahaha…"

"Ahh, that's bull," Phil replied, also laughing. "Anyway… how are you doing in the dating pool?"

"Ohhhh…. Me 'n Chris broke up a while ago. Well he broke up. I didn't really wanna break up. But he did."

"Oh… sorry to hear that."

"Me too…"

"You know, we're not that different, you and me."

"Huh?"

"You know… I mean, you're having problems with Chris… I'm havin' problems with Keely. Your family's all preoccupied with Ashley, mine is all bothered about moving away, so they don't pay much attention to us--"

"Wanna know a secret?" Bonnie asked.

"Yeah…" Phil whispered, looking at her.

"My family hates me," she said, chuckling.

"You're kidding…"

"No… see these scars on my arm? They hate me for it… but sorry, go on…"

"Huh? Oh yeah… so yeah, boyfriend-girlfriend problems, our families don't pay attention to us… what else… we both tried to hook up with our ex… We're both just tryin' to get our lives back on track, you know?"

Bonnie stared blankly ahead. "Heh… you're absolutely right…"

"I know."

"We're really _not_ that different…" Bonnie turned over to look at Phil and laughed. "You're absolutely right."

When the bottle was nearly empty, Bonnie was lying on the ground, and Phil was sitting up on the couch.

"Hey Phil…"

"Whazzat?"

"You should… you should get a good look at my ass while you can, 'cause I'm gonna… party it off later," she said, then started to laugh hysterically.

"Party?" Phil asked, looking down at her.

"Yeah," she said, tilting her head back so she could look at him. "The way I see it… I've been… I've been in my room too much… I gadda git out."

"That's… a good idea… it's… it's awesome…"

"You should get out too, you know."

"Ya think so? Nahhh…"

"C'monnn…" she slurred, sitting up.

"I dunno… I gotta clear things up with Keely…"

Bonnie made a whipping sound effect, then laughed.

"Noo," Phil said. "Come onnnn…"

"Dude, you're… you're whipped. Come on! Live a little…"

"I'm not whipped…"

"Dude."

"I'm not! You know me, I'm… wild…"

"You're not wild. I've never… seen you go to any parties."

"I go to parties."

"No, I mean… wild parties. Like me!"

"You're… a wild party?"

"No…" Bonnie said, laughing. "I go to 'em though…"

"Ahh…"

"You know what I mean 'wild,' right?"

"I think so. Sorta like this?"

"Eh sorta. There's more people, and… more stuff."

"Ahh… so what's the worst you've ever done?"

"I'm not telling you! Heheh… but I will say. That I think… Drugs have done some good things for us, I really do. And you know what? If you don't believe me… I want you… to… go home… take all your records, all your CDs, all your music, and just burn it. Okay? Because those artists that made that music that made your life so good over the years? Rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreal fuckin' high on drugs."

Phil laughed. "Ahh… look Bonnie… I gotta thank you."

"No prob, Bob."

"For… well, everything tonight, you know? You're great. I feel better. Loads better…"

"Ahh," Bonnie said, raising a hand.

"Naw, really. You're great. And you're hella funny…"

"Oh, you're just… you're just Phil. You're great," Bonnie laughed.


	15. in statu nascendi

Bonnie woke up the next morning with a pretty powerful headache. She slowly opened her eyes to find the sun glaring in her face. Shielding her eyes she rolled onto her back.

_Wait a minute…_

She frowned. Why would the sun be shining in her eyes? Her bed was against the wall, away from the window.

She looked over to discover she wasn't in her bed at all, but the guest room.

"What th-…"

She heard the doorknob turn and looked to it to see Phil frozen.

"Phil?"

He glanced over his shoulder, and eventually turned around. Bonnie raised her eyebrows in shock: though he had his pants and jacket on, he seemed to be missing a shirt underneath it.

"Ph-"

Bonnie froze, then slowly looked down to find that she was actually wearing his shirt. She let her head fall down and stared blankly at the ceiling, her mouth hanging slightly open.

"I'm just gonna… go into the hall… let you get… yeah," Phil said, shaking his head, and zipping up his jacket.

Phil headed out into the hall, shut the door behind him, and sat down on the ground, leaning up against the wall.

"I'm actually not sure I even want that shirt back…" Phil muttered, holding his head in his hands. His brain seemed to be beating against the inside of his skull. A few minutes later, Bonnie came out of the room. She tossed his shirt on the ground and immediately shoved her hands into her pockets. Phil tentatively picked up his shirt and stood up.

"Um…" he said, rubbing the back of his neck.

"Uh…" she muttered, looking at the ground.

"Okay… we let nobody find out about this, okay?" he said.

"Agreed."

"At least for now… nobody finds out about this…" He left, shaking his head, and Bonnie kicked at the ground. She couldn't even remember half of what had happened the previous night, but decided that maybe, at least for the time being, that wasn't such a bad thing.

She began to feel quite sick, and not just because of the liquor from last night. She went into her room and spread out on the ground, hoping her stomach would stop flipping around. She fell asleep, and only woke up a few hours later when Keely came home and into her room.

"So why weren't you at school today?"

"I just didn't feel too good," Bonnie answered.

"Oh… hey, Via said she saw Phil walking home from here when she was driving to school… did he come over here today?" Keely asked.

"What? No, of course not! Why would he? You weren't here."

"Oh, so he was just taking a walk… okay then."

"I mean, he was _here_," Bonnie corrected herself, "but he was only here like five minutes, I swear."

"Oh… so he just dropped by to see if I was here? I guess that would explain why he was late to school…"

"I don't know, why don't you ask him yourself?" Bonnie cried. "I don't know anything! He was barely even here!"

"Whoa… sorry, Bonnie…" she said, and backed out of the room. Bonnie shook her head.

A few days later, Bonnie was sitting at the table doing some psychology homework when the doorbell rang. "Somebody gonna get that?" she asked, looking up.

"Yeah, I got it," Keely said, coming down the stairs. Bonnie sighed and turned back to her notes. "Anyway, come on in," Keely smiled, leading Phil into the house.

"Oh… hey Phil," Bonnie said awkwardly. The few days that had passed since the incident did not cut down on the awkward feeling they were both experiencing at that moment.

"Hey, Bonnie," he replied.

"Hm… oh, what's that? Oh, my phone just rang," Bonnie lied.

"I didn't hear anything," Keely replied.

"Uh, it's… on vibrate. Silent. Whatever. Hello?" she carried on her fake conversation as she headed on upstairs.

"That girl ain't right," Keely muttered, shaking her head.


	16. the beginning of The End

It was the ninth of November, and Bonnie and Phil had kept 'the incident' secret for a little over a month. However, the pressure was causing them to crack…

"This has gone on long enough… I can't take it anymore," Bonnie said, after confronting Phil at lunch.

"I know… I know… okay, first person to see Keely tells her, okay?" Phil asked.

"Got it…" Bonnie replied, nodding.

After staying after school to take a test for math, Bonnie trudged home, ready to face the music. She opened the door and headed on inside, looking around. She saw Keely sitting rigidly at the table, staring right back at her.

"Uh, Keely? Can I… tell you something?"

"Does this have anything to do with you and Phil about a month or so ago?" Keely asked coldly, raising an eyebrow.

"He told you, then?… Listen, Keely, I--"

"How… I… I don't even know what to… Go away, Bonnie. I don't even…"

"Keely, I'm really sorry… I… I would've told you earlier, but…"

"Go… Away."

"I'm really--"

"GO AWAY!" Keely shouted, slamming her fist on the table.

Bonnie recoiled, and froze for a few seconds. Keely glared daggers at her, and she ran upstairs to her room, fighting back tears. She stayed in her room all night, and refused to come out for dinner, despite arguing with her mother for the better part of twenty minutes over the matter.

After making sure the rest of her family was asleep, Bonnie decided to sneak out. After five minutes lumping some clothes and other things she found around her room under her blankets, she was able to create a pretty good impression of herself lying in bed under the blankets. After admiring her handiwork, she opened her window and climbed onto a tree, then lowered herself to the ground.

Being the second Friday of the month, Bonnie knew that a group of her friends would be hanging out in a house on Pine Nut Road. So, she started to walk there.

"Hey, Bonnie," a friend of hers, Hailey, said, as she opened the door. "C'mon in." Hailey was about Bonnie's height, and had black hair and emerald green eyes. "What's up?"

"Not much… My sister's kind of pissed at me, though," Bonnie explained, as they walked around the room, Bonnie greeting the occasional person that walked by.

"Oh really?"

"Yeah… I tried to apologize, but she just told me to get the hell out…"

"You okay?" Hailey asked.

"Not really. Kinda feel like shit. Worse than I ever remember feeling, too… Hey, Kody, Laura."

"Hey," Kody said, rolling a cigarette between his fingers. "What's up?"

"Nothin'. Whatcha got there?" Bonnie asked Laura, pointing to a small container next to her. Laura was a friend of Hailey's. She was about twenty-two, and was almost always dressed in dark clothing.

"Dude," Laura said, showing Bonnie the contents.

Bonnie smirked. "Hook me up," she said.

"Okay, but this shit doesn't grow on trees if ya catch my drift…" Laura replied. Bonnie laughed, and Laura snatched the money she offered. "I never knew you shot up."

"I never said that I did," Bonnie said, sitting down next to her, looking at the needle.

"Don't worry, man, they're clean," Laura said.

Bonnie rolled up her sleeve. "Here's lookin' at you, shweethaht," she said in a Boston accent. She pointed the needle up, tapped it a few times, and squirted out a small amount of liquid before pushing off.

She didn't so much as think of Keely for the rest of the night. After the party, she headed home, in a daze, and climbed up the tree to sneak back into her room.


	17. absit omen

Bonnie woke up on Saturday to find herself lying on the ground. She sauntered over to her mirror and looked at her reflection. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her pupils were still slightly contracted from last night. She sighed. She looked a mess…

But damn, did that high feel so sweet…

She laughed to herself, and looked down at the picture of her and Keely that sat on her desk. She frowned before tipping it over, face-down, leaving only the picture of her and Ashley standing upright.

She briefly considered walking downstairs, then decided against it. She looked back at the desk, at the picture of her and Keely, face down on top of it…

_I didn't mean to, Keely…_

She paced around her room a few times before picking up her sketchpad. She started to draw a picture of her friend Jocelyn in profile, and was about halfway finished when she stopped and looked down at it.

She frowned.

She didn't like it.

It looked just like Jocelyn…

But she didn't like it.

She decided to take the drawing in a different direction. She colored the hair black, and did the same with the lips. Not sure what to do with the eyes, she looked around, her fingers twitching. When she looked back down, she found that she'd heavily lined the eyes with pencil. Deciding that she liked it, she blended it, and made the eyeliner darker.

She took a second look at the drawing, which now barely bore any resemblance to her friend, and shrugged. It was still missing something. She sketched her neck and shoulders, then an arm leading out of the picture, then shoved it aside.

It was missing something.

She picked up another picture, and sketched a man facing the side, hunched over and crying out to the sky, his hands held in front of him, palms facing up. She drew a single circle around him, paused, then proceeded to darken the circle, then made it wider, until everything outside the circle was black, and the picture seemed to be almost looking through a tunnel at the man. She shook her head again. She knew something was missing.

She tossed that one aside and drew a girl in a hospital bed, hooked up to an IV. Beside her sat a teenaged boy, holding her hand.

She sketched for a few hours, but still found that a majority of her pictures were missing something. She was actually quite pleased with a few (for example, a picture looking through a window at a young man standing outside in the snow, next to a tombstone, looking up to the sky).

Still, most of them were missing… something.

She took the stack of drawings, which now totaled about twenty or twenty-five pictures, and put it on her bed. She looked around her room, and sighed. It was getting dirty.

She spent the next two and a half hours cleaning up her room, then headed out to the garage to put all the trash in a garbage can.

"Hey, Nugget," her mother said as she came back into the house. "Your sister wants to talk to you."

Bonnie froze. She imagined that Keely would probably just want to shout at her some more and make her feel even worse than she already did. "Hm," Bonnie muttered, and headed upstairs. "Tough luck for her, then."

She went back into her room and sat down on her bed. Her eyes fell on a small, sharp knife sitting on her shelf.

She looked at a drawing sitting next to her. It was one that she had drawn of herself, on her knees, with her head hanging down, her hair in her face. She was facing toward her sister, who was standing with her arms crossed, looking down at her. Bonnie blinked a few times, then scribbled the phrase _ABSIT INVIDIA_ at the bottom of the page, below where she had drawn Keely standing. She brushed a rogue tear from her cheek, then sat down on the ground, and rolled up her pant leg. She picked up the knife that sat on her shelf and brought the tip to her thigh. She drove it into her skin and drew it across her leg, making a gash about five inches long. She watched with fascination as the blood oozed out, then looked up, as the smile faded from her face. She grabbed the picture she had just looked at, and examined it closely.

Smiling, she dipped her finger in the blood on her leg, and dabbed it at the drawing, creating a pool where she had drawn herself kneeling. She added some into her hair, and onto Keely's hands.

She snickered, and grabbed a paintbrush from the shelf and dipped it into the blood pooling on her wound. Picking up the first picture she drew that day, she added a red tear running down the girl's face, and colored the eyes completely with blood.

She then picked up the picture of the crying man, and covered his hands in blood, and drew some blood falling from his eyes as well. She looked at the empty white space behind him, and dipped the pointed end of the brush in her blood, and wrote a message behind him, partially obscured by his body: _I AM NOT THE PERSON I ONCE WAS. WHAT YOU ARE NOW, I WILL BE SOON…_

Going through the pictures, she added red to various areas. She had to cut her legs a few more times, but eventually, she looked at the pictures, and was actually satisfied. She took the stack and began to hang her pictures up on the wall. Pretty soon, an entire wall was covered in her drawings. She noticed that five of the pictures she had drawn actually fit together to form one larger picture, and frowned. She hadn't intended for that to happen… and yet it had.

She laid down, and stared at the ceiling, laughing.


	18. ghosts of things to come

The next Saturday, while Keely was spending time at the mall with Via and Tia, Bonnie sat in her room again, alone. She sat at her desk, twirling her violin bow between her fingers, then straightened up and began to play a piece called "Southern Hospitality", a rather cold and discomforting piece despite the violin's tendency to create soft, warm sounds.

She had been trying to find a song to accompany some of the drawings she had hung up on the opposite wall, and decided the one she was playing actually suited some of them quite well.

She nodded, then looked through her sheet music to find another song, "Lux Aeterna". She picked it up and began to play it. Once she finished, she sighed. It made her feel much more depressed than the other one she had been playing.

She set her violin down and looked at her cell phone. Picking it up, she dialed Jocelyn's number.

"Hello?" she asked from the other end.

"Hey, Joss… it's Bonnie."

"Oh, hey, what's up?"

"Nothin'… just realized I hadn't talked to ya in a while…"

"Oh, okay."

Bonnie sighed. "So how are you doing?"

"Eh, same shit, different day… what about you?"

"Nothing much. Just been working on drawings, mostly. Haven't really wanted to go out…"

"Are you okay, Bonnie? You've been acting… weird the past week."

"I'm fine…"

"Bonnie… it's me. You can tell me if something's wrong…"

"Don't pretend like you don't know, Joss. I know everybody was talking about it last week when they found out…"

"Found out what?"

"Uh, about me and Phil…"

"You and Phil…"

"Come on, don't pretend you don't know…"

"Wait… I think I heard somebody in government talking about that… oh my… is it true?"

"Sadly… yes… but we were drunk! We never would've done that if we had been sober…"

"Well, I believe that…"

"God… now everybody's talking behind my back about me, Keely hasn't even talked to me in a week… I don't even know if Ma even found out yet…"

"I'm really sorry, Bonnie… I wish I could think of a way to help out, but… I can't. If you ever need to talk to me, though… you know you can, right?"

"Yeah, I know…"

"Anything else you wanted to talk about?"

"I don't think so," Bonnie said, trying not to cry.

"Okay…"

"Bye, Joss."

Bonnie headed downstairs hoping to find that Keely still was not home, but was not lucky enough to find things that way.

Keely glanced up with disgust at Bonnie, before looking back down at her anatomy homework. Keely had not recently been as nasty as she had been when she first found out about what had happened between Bonnie and Phil, but she was still harboring ill will towards her sister.

Bonnie was afraid to breathe. In fact, she doubted she would be able to even if she wanted, because she was so tense. Their mom walked in the front door and greeted them.

"Uh, Ma?" Bonnie asked quietly. "Could you drive me into town tomorrow?"

"Oh… Sorry, can't do it tomorrow, ask your sister," Mandy replied, and walked upstairs.

Bonnie hung her head as Keely hissed, "You know I'm not driving you into town. I don't even care what you were planning on doing… I'd guess that maybe you had a corner to work at… there are better ways to make a living, you know," she spat, and headed into the living room.

Bonnie ran upstairs with tears streaming down her face, and nearly ran into Mandy as she ducked into her room and slammed the door.

"Bonnie?" Mandy asked, knocking on Bonnie's door. "What's wrong?"

Of course, Bonnie didn't bother to answer. So Mandy headed downstairs to talk to Keely. "Did you say something to Bonnie?"

"Huh? No, why?"

"Well she just ran upstairs into her room, crying. You're sure you didn't say anything to her?"

"Yeah," Keely answered. Under her breath, she added, "Guess she's just a whiny little runt…"

Mandy was about to scold Keely, but the doorbell rang, and Keely jumped up to answer it.

"Oh… hey, Phil," she said, indifferently. "What do you want?"

"I just want to talk," Phil begged.

Keely sighed. She really wanted to forgive Phil… but on the other hand…

"Alright then," she said. "I'm all ears." She stood aside to let him in and led him up to her room. Of course, if Keely had left the door open for a few more seconds, she would've seen Bonnie running off into the night down the street, but she was too eager to hear what Phil had to say.


	19. a matter of greed

Keely sat down on her bed looked up at Phil expectantly. He paced around a while before beginning.

"Look, Keely… I know what I did was wrong… and I know that it broke your heart. I know that already… but I swear that if I had been sober, if I had been in my right mind, you know I never would have even thought of doing what I did, because I know how much it would have hurt you… I don't think I'll ever be able to forgive myself for what I did, and I doubt you ever will, either… I just want you to know how terrible this whole ordeal is making me feel… and that if I could go back, and take it all back, I would…"

Keely, who had been looking at her feet during his whole speech, perked up upon hearing that part. "Phil, that's it! You can go back! You can stop yourself from ever making that mistake!"

Phil sighed. "Keely, it just wouldn't be the same. First off, I don't even know if the time machine would work enough to get me there and back again… even if it did, and it worked perfectly, and I stopped myself from going there that night, and none of you knew that it ever happened… _I_ still would, you know? I would always live with the memory, regardless if you did or not…"

Keely sighed. "I guess so… guess I was just hoping for a miracle, huh?"

"I never meant for things to be this way, Keely…"

"I want to forgive you, so badly," Keely confessed. "I know any day here could be your last… I'd hate to spend it mad at you for a mistake… and I know you'd never do something like that on purpose… I just don't know if I can, Phil… I mean, this is really serious…"

"I get it, Keely… just know that I never wanted anything like this to happen between us."

"I mean… I guess I can try to just… not hold this against you, but… it's not going to be the same between us for a long time…"

"I wouldn't ever expect it to, Keel."

Keely sighed and shook her head. "Could you give me a few days to think this over? I just… don't know what to do right now."

Phil sighed, but relented.

"I'll call you in a few days," Keely replied, a twang of remorse in her voice.


	20. high on life

"She… she _hates_ me!" Bonnie sobbed, wiping a few tears from her face.

"Bonnie, she's just… she's just confused and frustrated, that's all…" Jocelyn said, giving Bonnie a comforting hug. "But I _know_ she doesn't hate you…"

Bonnie sniffled and looked Jocelyn in the eyes. "You don't know her like I do, Joss," she whispered. "She's usually nice, but she can be kind of mean to people when she's mad, but I've never… never seen her be mean just because she could…"

"Well, what did she say?"

"It doesn't even matter."

"You guys have fought plenty before; it's never affected you this badly…"

"See, most people… well, when most people get mad, they'll throw almost anything at you they can think of, hoping to put a dent in your armor, yeah?"

"I'm following you…"

"Well, Keely… she... she just uses a sharp stick. She holds herself back, because when she really wants to hurt you, she knows where the gaps in your armor are. She doesn't waste anything, because she knows how to make you hurt…"

"I'm sorry, Bonnie, I really am…"

"She hates me," she whispered.

"Oh, she doesn't hate you," Jocelyn said.

"She does… I'm sure she does… she was just so… _nasty_ to me about it… I've never seen her so angry…"

Bonnie stayed at Jocelyn's house for about another half-hour until she decided to head on home for the night. However, once she was a block away from her friend's house, she found herself regretting her decision to head back home. She looked around, then came to a decision…

"Hey, Bonnie," Hailey smiled. "Didn't expect to see you here today..."


	21. blame Hofmann

Bonnie snuck back into her room, then sat down at her desk. She looked at her reflection, and noticed she had dilated pupils, and a few beads of sweat on her forehead.

She leaned back and sighed., then looked at the desk. She picked up the picture of her and Keely and looked at it. She ran her fingers along the edge of the frame, looking with sadness at their happy faces.

"Ow," she muttered, shaking her finger. "Damn splinters…" She licked the tip of her finger, then looked back at the picture.

"I didn't mean to, Keely. I didn't want it to be like this…" She heard a voice laughing. Breathing deeply, she looked around for somebody in her room. "Who's there?" she asked, setting the picture face-down on her desk.

_Oh, Bonnie_, the voice hissed. It sounded almost demonic to her. _You silly, silly girl…_

"Who… Who's sayin' that?" she asked.

_I'm so sorry, Keely,_ the voice mocked, trilling the 'R' sound. _I didn't mean for this to happen_…

Bonnie stood up and looked around before her eyes fell on the mirror. Her reflection was glaring back at her. "What the…"

_Oh, Bonnie… _the reflection said, _you've really ruined it, haven't you?_

"What do you mean?" Bonnie asked, in fear.

_What do I mean? Oh, you broke your sister's heart, you destroyed her faith in you… how can she trust a whore like you?_

"Shut up," Bonnie said. "It was a mistake, that's all."

_A mistake. Of course. It was just a mistake. You know what happens when a doctor makes a little mistake, Bonnie? People DIE!_

Bonnie flinched as the desk and mirror shook. "I never… it wasn't my… we were drunk! We didn't... know what we were doing…"

_Bonnie, your sister… she won't easily forgive you for this one. You've done some bad shit in your life, but this little travesty outdoes them all._

"Shut up," Bonnie spat.

_You can't shut me up, Bonnie. I'm the lash in your eye. I'm the corner of your mind. I'm the little voice in your head every time you make a decision. And you know what? You're just a con, aren't you? A stealer of hearts._

"Shut up, shut up," Bonnie muttered, covering her ears with her hands and shutting her eyes.

_You're a filthy little whore, Bonnie. That's all you are. A filthy_

"Shut up shut up shut up"

_little_

"Shutupshutupshutupshutup"

_WHORE_

In a burst of rage, Bonnie slammed her fist against the mirror, shattering it into small shards. Instantly the voice stopped, and Bonnie opened her mouth in horror.

_Holy crap that was loud_, was her first thought. Figuring her mother would come in at any moment, she hurriedly threw a blanket over the mirror and leaped into bed.

Sure enough, Mandy came in about a minute later. "Did that crash come from here?"

"I… think that was next door, Ma," Bonnie lied, trying to make her voice sound as if she'd just woken up. She decided it worked, because Mandy left her room. Bonnie looked at her hand in the moonlight, which was dripping blood. She noticed a long, thin shard of glass embedded in her hand, and tried to pull it out. It broke off, and Bonnie looked for something to pry it out with. She snatched her knife off of the windowsill, and wedged it between her hand and the glass. She bit her tongue to stop from screaming, and slid out the glass just as somebody knocked at the door again. She sighed and went to answer it.

"What the hell are you doing?" Keely asked, sleepy and angry. "I know that didn't come from next door, that came from this room."

"It's nothing," Bonnie said, and went to shut the door. Keely stopped the door and pushed it open a bit further, putting her hand on the doorframe.

Bonnie looked at Keely's hand and sighed. "It was nothing," she repeated.

"Bullshit, now what was it? What the hell were you doing in here?"

Bonnie narrowed her eyes, and looked down at her feet.

The glint of the knife in her hand caught her eye. She looked up at her sister and drove the knife into her hand. It went all the way through and the tip of the blade stuck into the doorframe. Keely screamed in agony as Bonnie twisted the knife.

"Well?" Keely asked.

Bonnie blinked. She looked down and saw the knife still hanging at her side, the only blood on the blade from her own hand, and not her sister's. Keely gave her a strange look.

"You know what, never mind. I don't really want to know what you were doing…" Keely shook her head and walked away, muttering "freak" under her breath. Bonnie shut the door and looked down at the knife quizzically.

* * *

**Updates every day from here on out, kiddos. **


	22. famous last words

On Wednesday the 21st, the day before Thanksgiving, Bonnie knocked on her sister's door, ready to talk to her for the first time in over a week.

_**When there's nowhere else to run...**_

Keely opened the door and met Bonnie with a look of disdain. "Yeah, what do you want?"

"Just wanna talk," Bonnie squeaked out.

_**If you can't hold on...  
**_

"Well, maybe I don't want to listen," Keely said, and went to shut the door. Bonnie wedged her shoe into the frame, and Keely sighed in irritation.

_**If you can't hold on... **_

"Please, Keely… come on…"

_**hold on...**_

Keely rolled her eyes and let Bonnie in. "What is it?"

"…I hate this."

"What?"

"I hate this… what's happened to us. We never talk anymore… I'm really sorry, Keely… I'd take it all back if I got the chance… I really would… I just wish things could be like they used to."

"Well, they can't…" Keely spat.

"It just… I hate it… I mean, I never liked it when we fought, but… this… this is just killing me. I don't want it to be this way anymore…"

"…I have nothing to say to you, Bonnie," Keely said, and turned her back to her sister.

Bonnie dropped to her knees and fought back tears.

_**I want to stand up  
I want to let go  
You know, you know, no  
You don't, you don't  
**_

"I used to be able to talk to Ashley about anything… she'd always listen, she'd always give me some sort of advice… I could always count on her… I used to be able to do the same thing with you… when she died, I thought I'd always be able to turn to you when I needed help, but… now I don't have anyone. I can't even sleep at night anymore. Sometimes I lay awake at night and I have trouble breathing, and I feel like somebody's just… strangling me… Don't say it'll stay this way forever, Keely… please… Dreams are all I had of what used to be, now I can't even have those! I… I just…"

"You really do have some problems," Keely muttered.

_**Another head aches**_  
_**Another heart breaks  
I'm so much older than I can take  
And my affection, well it comes and goes**_

"I have an idea," Bonnie said, her voice quivering...

_**I need direction to perfection  
No no no no  
**_

Bonnie sniffled, and said, "Let's pretend I already feel awful about it, and just skip the part where you make me want to die."

_** Help me out  
Yeah  
You know you gotta help me out  
Yeah  
Oh don't you put me on the backburner  
You know you gotta help me out, yeah**_

Keely blinked several times, her back still turned to her sister.

"What happened to you, Keely? Is there nothing I can do anymore to get you to talk to me? Where's your heart? Why are you acting this way?"

Keely put a hand to her mouth and blinked a few times, looking around.

"Why can't you understand? Why can't you at least try to understand me? Why are you shutting me out? Do you care at all?" Bonnie stammered, staring at the back of her sister's head.

_**I got soul, but I'm not a soldier...**_

Keely felt her sister's eyes piercing the back of her head and shuddered.

"Is it so hard, Keely? Just listen to me, please…"

_**Yeah  
You know you gotta help me out  
Yeah  
Oh don't you put me on the backburner  
You know you gotta help me out  
Yeah**_

She ran a hand through her hair, and shook her head, with a pained expression on her face that Bonnie couldn't see.

_**You're gonna bring yourself down  
Yeah  
You're gonna bring yourself down**_  
_**Yeah**_

"I need you to help me, Keely… I'm… I just… you're my sister, Keely… I love you…"

_**Oh don't you put me on the backburner  
**_

Keely turned around and looked at her sister, kneeling on the ground, her hair hanging down around her face. Keely shook her head. "Well I don't love you…" she whispered, crossing her arms.

_**You're gonna bring yourself down**_

Bonnie struggled to cry silently. She clumsily stood up and ran out the door, avoiding even looking at her sister.

Keely watched as she ran out, and put a hand to her forehead and bit her lip. After a second, she ran out after her, shouting after her.

"Bonnie, wait!" she cried, as Bonnie flung open the front door and ran out into the night. Maybe Bonnie just chose to ignore her sister, or she couldn't even hear her over her own sobbing, but she didn't even so much as stutter as she dashed away, out of Keely's sight.

_**Over and in  
Last call for sin  
While everyone's lost  
The battle is won  
With all these things that I've done**_

Having not paid attention to where she had been running, she stopped some twenty minutes later and looked up. According to the street sign, she was at the intersection of Anzio Drive and Marion Way.

She looked to her right. A few blocks down was Jocelyn's house. She smiled and started to walk there, then paused. Looking to her left, she realized that Hailey and her friends were going to be just a few houses down.

Bonnie looked both ways a few times, debating with herself on which way to head.

_**If you can't hold on  
If you can't hold on...  
**_

* * *

**"All These Things That I've Done" - The Killers**


	23. ghosts of a future lost

Keely leaned against the wall, pressing her hands against her forehead. Sighing, she dropped her arms and looked around the room. Her eyes fell on the phone.

"Hey, it's Bonnie, leave a message and I'll call you back," the recording said, and Keely hung up the phone in frustration.

The doorbell rang, and Keely sprinted to answer it. "Bonnie?" she asked, as she flung open the door. "Oh… oh, hey, Phil."

"Hey, Keely… you… said you wanted to talk to me?"

"Oh… right… look, Phil, I, uh… I just…" Keely stammered as she led Phil into her room.

She sat down on her bed and looked at the spot where Bonnie had fell to her knees, crying. "I just want things to be like they were before… I don't want things to be this way anymore…" She burst into tears and hugged Phil, which caught him entirely off-guard.

"Phil," she said, looking him in the eyes, "Bonnie… she…"

Keely didn't get to finish that thought right away, as Mandy came in and asked, "Keely, did Bonnie say she was going somewhere? I can't find her anywhere…"

Keely looked up with sad eyes at her mother. "Um… there's… some things you should know…" she started…

Some time later, Jocelyn's phone rang. "Hello?" she asked.

"Uh, is this Jocelyn?" Keely asked from the other end.

"Yeah… who is this?"

"Um, it's… Keely…"

"Oh, hey, Keely… what do you want?"

"I was just wondering if you'd seen Bonnie tonight… if she came over there or something…"

"Uh… no, sorry… haven't seen her all night."

A long silence hung over the other end of the phone.

"Oh… okay then… sorry," Keely eventually said, dejectedly, and hung up the phone.

Jocelyn raised an eyebrow and hung up. "So…" she said, "why didn't you want them to know you're here?"

"I just don't want to talk to them right now," Bonnie admitted.

"They're gonna be worried sick about you, you know…"

"I doubt it…"

"Sure they will, Bonnie."

"Do you want to know what she said to me? …She said, 'I don't love you…' …She doesn't love me, Joss. You have… no idea how much that hurts…"

Jocelyn stared back at Bonnie, totally shocked. She was about to say something, but a flashing outside her window caught her attention. "What the…"

"What's that?" Bonnie asked, looking up.

"Police cars… a whole squad of 'em…" Jocelyn watched as they headed down the street. "Wonder what happened…"

"I don't know…" Bonnie muttered, though she was somewhat suspicious that she knew exactly where those cops were headed. "Hey, listen… you won't mind if I stay here for the night, will you?"

She sighed. "I dunno, Bonnie… I mean, I'm sure your family's so worried…"

"It's alright if you don't, I mean… I don't mind…"

"But…" she sighed. "I guess you can stay… for the night… but just know that I'm not going to lie to your family again for you."

"Fair enough," Bonnie said. "And thanks… I really appreciate it…"


	24. fear

Keely lay on her bed, scrolling through the music on her iPod, searching for anything to listen to. She stopped when she found a favorite song of hers, and hit 'play'.

**_And I will wait until the end  
When the pendulum will swing back to the  
Darker side of our hearts bleeding_**

She sighed, sprung up, and headed to Bonnie's room. Keely hadn't even been in there in over a month.

**_I will save this empty space  
Next to me like it's a grave  
Where I lay a place for us to sleep eternally together_**

She entered the room, and looked around. It had changed so much since she'd last been in there.

**_I have been  
Searching for  
Traces of  
What we were_**

The wall above her bed was totally covered in morbid drawings, many of them colored with what looked horribly like blood. The mirror was shattered, and broken glass sat on the desk like razor-sharp teeth. She picked up a picture that sat on the desk and examined it. It showed two girls standing in front of two tombstones, holding hands, with their hair blowing in the wind. Below it, a quote was scrawled: "Let us go then, you and I / When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized on a table… - T. S. Eliot …"

She set down the drawing, and noticed the two overturned pictures on the desk…

"**_A ghost of you…_**" Bonnie sang to herself quietly, looking outside the front window of Jocelyn's house, "**_is all that I have left… It's all that I have left of you to hold… I wake in the night to find there's no one there but me… And nothing left of what we were at all…_**"

Bonnie sighed. She knew Jocelyn was right… she should go back home, so her family wouldn't worry about her…

…but Keely had been _so vicious _to her…

She didn't know if she wanted to face that monster again.

**_So here I am, pacing 'round this house again  
With pictures of us living on these walls  
I see my breath in the cold of the air that I breathe  
And I'm wondering  
I'm wondering if it's you that I feel  
If it's you that I feel here haunting me forever…_**

Keely moaned and left Bonnie's empty room, shaking her head. She kept looking down, avoiding looking at the faces as she passed a few pictures of her and her sisters hanging on the wall in the hallway.

**_I have been  
Searching for  
Traces of  
What we were…_**

She sat at her desk back in her room and buried her head in her arms.

**_A ghost of you is all that I have left  
It's all that I have left of you to hold  
I wake in the night to find there's no one there but me  
And nothing left of what we were at all_…**

Keely glanced around in her desk and found the letter she had written to Ashley, after she had died. "Oh, Ash…" she muttered. "Why can't you be here? You'd know how to help…"

"**_And I'm not looking for… Anything but us… Anything but what we were…_**" Bonnie sang in a soft voice, debating whether or not she should go back and apologize for running out… surely Jocelyn was also right that Keely didn't really mean what she had said…

But that doubt remained in her mind.

**_And I'm not asking for  
Painted memories…  
I only want to know you're here…_**

Keely sobbed and threw the letter back into her desk. There was no point in wishing for a miracle. She had to set things right.

**_A ghost of you is all that I have left  
It's all that I have left of you to hold  
I wake in the night to find there's no one there but me  
And nothing left of what we were at all_**

"It's all my fault…" Keely muttered, staring at her reflection in the mirror.

"**_A ghost of you… is all that I have left… It's all that I have left of you to hold…_**" Bonnie sang to herself, as she wrote a note to Jocelyn:

_It's all my fault. I went off to try and see if I can't do anything about it. I hope you're right. Thanks for letting me stay here. - Bonnie_

She sighed and walked out the front door.

"**…_I wake in the night to find there's no one there but me… And nothing left of what we were at all…_**"

* * *

"**Ghost of You" - Good Charlotte**


	25. The End

Keely snapped awake to find herself sitting at the table. She looked wildly around and deduced that it was 10:10 AM, Thanksgiving day, and that she was looking through Bonnie's address book, presumably to check if any of her friends had seen her.

However, she had no such luck for the most part, until she reached Jocelyn's number.

"Yeah… she was here last night," she said.

"Really? Is she still there?"

"No, she left sometime after I fell asleep… she didn't come back?"

"Well… no…"

"Huh… I don't know where else she could have gone…"

"You don't?"

"No… she left a note saying she was going to try and see if she couldn't 'do anything about it'… I just assumed that meant she was going back home…"

"I guess not…" Keely sighed. "She didn't say anything else?"

"Not… really. Just that she hoped I was right…"

"About what?"

"About something you said to her last night…"

Keely bit her lip. "If you see her--"

"I'll let you know if I find anything out," Jocelyn reassured her.

"Thanks…"

"No problem…"

Jocelyn hung up the phone and looked at the note, trying to figure out where else she could have gone.


	26. meltdown

A young slender nurse walked down the hall from the clinic, looking around the small groups of people, giving off a small sense of urgency to anyone who may have been watching her.

Spotting who she was looking for, the nurse made a beeline for a tall, brown-haired man talking with a receptionist.

"Excuse me, Doctor Leonard?" she said, stepping up beside him.

"Yes?"

"Do you have a moment?"

"What's the question?" Dr. Leonard asked.

"It's… more of a situation."

"Well what is it?"

"A young lady in room 222."

"Is there a problem?"

"Well… yes. But she won't speak a word to me."

"How is she?"

"No visible physical trauma… she refused to be examined any further. Her vitals are just fine."

"Didn't get a name, then?"

"No."

"Did somebody drop her off? Maybe we could talk to them."

"No, she just wandered in here on her own… didn't have a cell phone, wallet, purse; nothing."

"Well… let's just try and say hello, then…"

Doctor Leonard walked with the light-brown-haired nurse to room 222 and went in. A blonde girl was sitting on the bed, rubbing her left elbow with her right hand. She snapped up to look at who had entered when the door opened, then sighed and looked back down with the timidity of a mouse.

"Hi, I'm Doctor Leonard," he greeted kindly, albeit a bit cautiously.

The patient wrapped her arms around herself.

"How are you today?"

The girl continued to dart her eyes around the room.

"How are you today?" Doctor Leonard repeated, more slowly this time.

The patient didn't move. Doctor Leonard sighed and looked over his shoulder at the nurse.

"Listen, you're in a safe place, here," he started, sitting down on a stool and facing the patient. "We're here to help you. But I need you to help me out first. Do you know your name?"

The patient looked over and parted her lips slightly. She trembled slightly as she tried to push a sound out of her mouth. Doctor Leonard leaned forward in his chair…

…but she only swallowed heavily and looked back to the ground, shaking her head.

"Do you know where you're from?" Doctor Leonard asked. But the patient merely stayed statuesque, biting her lower lip.

"We want to help you in whatever way we can," Nurse Anderson said, "but we need you to talk to us…"

"Do you think she can even talk?" Doctor Leonard asked the nurse.

"Honestly, I'm not even sure," Nurse Anderson responded.

"All we need from you is to just tell us some things. Your name…" he prompted, only to receive no reaction from the patient. "Any name, even. Your address… a phone number… a parent's name… sibling's name… relatives… friends…"

The girl blinked slowly then looked up at Doctor Leonard. She opened her mouth and let out a small breath. "Candida… Candida Grople…"

"Go run a search on Candida Grople," Leonard told the nurse. "See if she's been treated here." Turning to the patient, he asked, "Is that your name?"

She shook her head.

"A family member?"

She shook her head again.

"A friend?"

She nodded.

Leonard tried to get more information from the girl, but she refused to say anything more. A few minutes later, Nurse Anderson came back in holding a folder. "Looks like she was treated here a few months ago for a dislocated ankle…"

"Is there a phone number?" Doctor Leonard asked.

"Yes," the nurse responded, and recited the number to him as he dialed it up.

"Hello?" a girl asked from the other end.

"Hello, is this Candida Grople?"

"…Yes…"

"This is Doctor Leonard from Pickford Medical Hospital…" Doctor Leonard continued to tell her about the situation with the patient, and upon finishing it, was met with a silence.

"She didn't tell her name? Anything about herself?" Candida finally asked.

"No… I think she might be willing to tell something to you, though…"

Candida sighed. "Alright… I'll… I'll head over there."

Doctor Leonard hung up the phone and let out a breath. "She'll be here in a while… could you keep an eye on her?" he asked the nurse.

"Sure thing…"


	27. non sum qualis eram

"Dr. Leonard to the clinic, please."

Dr. Leonard walked to the reception desk, where the secretary pointed to a teenage girl with blond hair, not unlike the one in the room. After affirming that she was indeed who the patient had asked for, he led her down to the room.

Candida sighed and walked in the room. It was mid-morning, and she wasn't exactly thrilled about being brought downtown for reasons unknown. Upon entering, she saw a familiar figure sitting in the corner. She frowned. "Um… why did _you_… bring _me_ here? What happened?"

Bonnie looked nervously at Dr. Leonard, and Candida glanced over at him. "Could you… give us a minute?"

"Sure," the doctor said, and left the room.

"So… Bonnie… I've got about a thousand questions, but… what happened?"

Bonnie remained silent, looking at her hands.

"Bonnie?"

Candida sighed and decided that she wasn't going to answer that question. "So, okay… why did you ask me to come here?"

"Just wanted somebody to talk to, I guess…" Bonnie muttered.

"Okay, but why _me_? You have plenty of other, closer friends… you have your sister, you have your mom, why _me_?"

"Didn't want to talk to them," Bonnie replied sharply. "Is that so much of a crime?"

"I guess not, but--"

"Then okay. If there's nothing wrong with it, why don't you just stop asking why?"

Candida sighed in exasperation. "Okay, you want to talk to me. What do you want to talk to me about? Do you want to talk about what happened to you?"

Bonnie shook her head.

"Then what?"

"I don't know. Anything. The weather."

"You're sitting in a hospital bed and you want to know how brightly the sun is shining outside?"

"Yeah. Yeah I do," Bonnie replied.

Candida shook her head. "If you'll excuse me a minute…"

Bonnie watched as Candida walked outside the room, rubbing her eyes. The doctor came up to her and had a conversation with her, and a few minutes later, both of them came in.

"These doctors want to help you… just tell them what you're doing here."

"I'd much rather just talk to you."

"What is with you? You're denying being helped by professionals? Why?"

"I told you. I'd rather just talk to you."

The doctor scribbled something on a clipboard and then said to Bonnie, "If you could lean back, please," putting a hand on her shoulder.

Bonnie jumped at this and swatted his hand away. "Get your hands off me," she growled.

Candida looked at Bonnie, surprised. "Oh my.. God…" she slowly muttered in realization.


	28. a sinking feeling

After a few blood tests (taken under the name Laura Webber), the doctors determined that Bonnie was healthy, and so had no reason to stay at the hospital.

"I just…" Candida complained as she walked down the sidewalk with Bonnie. "I just… don't… you should be with your family… your friends… why me?"

"Because I don't want to talk to my family. They're bitter and annoyed at me," Bonnie replied.

"Then talk to a psychologist. They'd be more… they'd be able to help you."

"Never said I wanted you to help me. Just said I wanted to talk to you."

"I… I don't understand you, Bonnie. You just got raped, and you want to talk to _me_ of all people? Why? Talk to a doctor, a psychologist, a family member… I don't--"

"You don't have to understand. You just have to talk to me."

Candida shook her head. "You are… one strange kid."

Bonnie raised an eyebrow feebly and shook her head. "Is it really that hard to open up for you?"

"I hardly even know you. I feel weird knowing that I found out what happened to you before any of your friends or family."

"You think it's weird that I want to talk to you?"

"I think it's weird that you put so much trust and faith into a person you hardly even know."

"I think it's weird that you think it's weird."'

"And why is that?"

"You give me the impression that nobody trusts you. That people don't open up to you."

"People don't like me," Candida replied, as the two of them sat down on a park bench.

"People like you."

"They don't like me for the reasons they like you. People like you because you're nice to them. You care about them. People like me because I'm popular. People cling to you because you're warm and nice to them. You'll stick up for them if somebody does something to them. People cling to me like a remora clings to a shark. They know people won't mess with them because people don't mess with me. They like me because I represent something better… they like you because you embody what they are… what they can relate to."

"You're just a regular girl like me."

"People think that… but… it's not true. They have a much easier time relating to you. Trust me."

"Oh yeah, I guess any rape victim that comes along would rather talk to me because I'd be able to relate to them. Come on, people relate to you. They _want_ to relate to you."

"Sure, they _want_ to, they _try_ to, but they _can't_. That's the problem."

"Has anything bad ever happened to you?"

Candida looked over at Bonnie and sighed, not really sure what to say. "Why don't you tell me what happened to you?"

"Because we were talking."

"Why aren't we anymore?"

"I don't know. You were enjoying the conversation."

"I do well in those types of conversations. Why did we stop?"

Bonnie frowned. "Never mind."

The two remained silent until Bonnie piped up, "Come on. I want to… see somebody."


	29. the river

"Jefferson! You've got visitors."

A police guard led Laura down the hall and sat her down at a cold table. The florescent bulb buzzed above her head as she looked across the table at two girls, one of whom she had never seen before.

"Hey, Bonnie," she said, her hands folded in her lap. "Who's that?"

"Just a friend," Bonnie replied. "Don't worry, she's cool."

Candida offered a polite smile, but Laura just looked back deadpan.

"So… where were you on Wednesday night, huh?" Laura asked, turning back to Bonnie.

"Just hanging out with a friend…"

"Oh. Not that I… would've wanted you in here with me, but…"

"So that squad was headed to where you were?"

"Yeah… they got quite a few of us, but…" Laura muttered, rubbing her mouth as she did.

"…Sorry to hear that."

"Thanks," Laura muttered, and sucked in her breath through her teeth. "Son of a bitch…"

"What?" Bonnie asked.

"My damn arm," Laura muttered, bringing her left arm up onto the table. A large area of skin near on the inside of her arm, near the elbow, had become infected, and had began to undergo necrosis. Candida turned away at the sight of the black flesh on Laura's arm, and coughed.

Laura glanced up at the sound of Candida's coughing. "Yeah, it ain't pretty… 'course these guards don't give a shit that a no-good druggie like me is goin' through this… damn…"

"Do you know how long you're in for?" Bonnie asked.

"No… they still gotta figure that out…"

Bonnie sighed. She didn't really want to see any more. "Listen, I hate to run on you like this, but… I gotta go."

"Okay. Well, see you later, Bonnie, maybe in some other life."

Bonnie weakly smiled. "Yeah, see you… you comin', Candida?"

"Just a minute," Candida asked, and Laura looked over at her. "I just… want to ask something really quick."

"Alright," Bonnie said, and walked outside.

Candida briefly explained the situation to Laura, and told her that she didn't know how to answer the question of if anything bad had ever happened to her.

"Wow…" Laura muttered. "Um… why don't you tell her that your life sucked?"

"It hasn't…"

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that she wants to know she's not alone. She wants to know that people have been in the shit so deep they couldn't run away, but they still fought for it and made it through. She wants to know she'll make it through."

"But… she knows people have been through worse. I mean, you're… in here…"

Laura laughed, much to the surprise of Candida. "Alright, point taken. Well, then… tell her your life has been good."

"It hasn't…"

"That doesn't matter. Tell her it was. Let her know that what happened to her isn't normal. Tell her things can be okay, that she will be okay again, someday."

"I dunno…"

"Well, Christ, I'm not a psychologist, why don't you send her to one?"

"She doesn't want to go to one…"

"Then tell her the truth. Why not? It's not like it's the wrong thing to do."

"I don't know if it's the right thing, though…"

"There is no right thing to do…"

"There is, I just don't know what it is…" Candida sighed. "Well, thanks for the help, anyway…"

"No problem," Laura said. Candida watched as she stood up and the guard led her around the corner and out of her sight. She sighed and joined Bonnie outside the front of the police station.


	30. vox clamantis in deserto

It was very late in the afternoon as Bonnie walked alongside Candida, her hands in her pockets.

"I was trying to set things right," Bonnie muttered, after a long silence.

"What?"

"I ran away that night… I didn't want to even look at my family anymore… I could've gone to that party, but I went to my friend's house instead. I tried to get myself back on track, but when I tried to go back home…"

"You had the right intentions, just… the wrong timing."

"I…" Bonnie sighed and sat down on a bench facing the sunset.

"You did the right thing, you were trying to do good…"

"Guess bad things do happen to good people… if there is such a thing as a good person…"

"People can do good things… But if their instincts are bad, that must mean God either does not exist, or he's just ridiculously cruel. If you believe in an afterlife, then your presence here is that of the significance of a grain of sand in relation to the earth."

"If you believe this is all there is, than there's no significance at all to your life."

"What you do here is what matters."

"Then nothing matters because there's no final consequence for what I do here. That… I don't want to believe that. I want to believe that this actually means something. That what I do here has an impact."

"Why?"

"It's comforting to know that this whole life isn't just a waste. If this is all there is, I could drop dead right now and there would be no consequences. It wouldn't matter in the least."

"Is it comforting you now? Do you feel good?" Candida asked, holding her arms out to her sides and looking at Bonnie.

"I haven't felt good in a long time… I can remember when my life used to be better."

"One of the great tragedies of life: something always has to change…"

"It's just… I…" Bonnie sighed in a mix of frustration and exasperation.

"I get it," Candida said, in an aggravated voice. "You're feeling weird. You're feeling detached from life. You woke up that morning just thinking that that was the day you were going to confront your sister. You had no idea that you'd be in the hospital the next day getting blood tests in the hospital. You didn't know that you'd get attacked by a junkie on a street you'd walked down hundreds of times before in your life. You're scared because you realize that he could have just as easily carried you off and abducted you. You're scared because you could've been tortured or killed. You're scared because you don't know if that drunkard made you pregnant and you still have to wait to find out. You're scared because you're just realizing you don't know what's going to happen to you in the next five minutes. You're scared because you don't know where you'll end up tomorrow. You're scared because you don't know if you'll still be alive next week. You're scared because you feel like you can't trust life anymore."

Bonnie looked up at Candida with a look of awe mixed with respect.

"I know, it's scary. And it'll drive you crazy if you think about it, Bonnie… my best advice is… don't."

Bonnie blinked slowly, looking blankly ahead with her mouth hanging slightly open. When she snapped out of her stupor, she noticed that the sun had set and Candida had found a great interest in her own shoes.

"Why did you call me, Bonnie? Out of all the people you could have chosen… why did you choose me?" Candida asked.

"You want to know why?"

"Yes."

"Because… I feel like… like you hurt. Like… there's some ghosts in your past that you can't let go… but you want to release at the same time…"

Candida looked back at Bonnie. Bonnie could sense a slight suffering inside her; she could see it in her eyes.

"What was it that happened to you?" Bonnie asked.

Candida sighed and scratched the back of her neck.

"I was about nine when my mother left my father… he was… the demanding type. He liked order, and he liked discipline… He wasn't afraid to implement it, either. He was a perfectionist. Always had to have things his way, couldn't settle for second best. He liked things how he liked them, and that's how he expected them to be. I guess it was effective, because I always tried to avoid screwing up when he was around. I was too afraid of being locked in the basement overnight, or having to… to clean out all the spider webs in the attic…"

"Spider-webs? What's wrong with that?…"

"You'd understand if you were arachnophobic," Candida explained. "Sometimes he would lock me in the closet for hours, or cut my hair short, or… he even made me watch as he beat my mother one time… My mother… she was either too drunk or too afraid to do anything about him. She didn't fight back. She couldn't, I guess. I felt bad for her… I hated him. He had high standards… didn't let me lie to anyone about anything. He was pretty much a human polygraph… Great quality for a boy scout or something like that… terrible quality for a dad. When I was nine, my mother finally left him… but she was screwed up from her alcoholism… she died about half-a-year later… my dad was determined to be unfit to be a parent and financial supporter, so I was put into foster care… eventually given to a nice couple who had always wanted a daughter but were never able to conceive… been with them for the better part of seven years. They're pleasant people… they feel more like my parents than my real ones ever were… she's like everybody else. She's nice… she's really funny. He's… like you, in a way. He cares a lot about people. Complete opposite of my biological father."

Bonnie watched Candida with rapt attention the whole time she spoke. "Wow…" she eventually mustered.

"Guess you never really know a person, do you?"

"I suppose not…" Bonnie muttered. At this point, darkness had set in, and the two of them were the only ones still at the park.

Candida shook her head.

"Is it all true?" Bonnie asked.

"Yes… why?"

"I've found that when you want to know the truth about somebody, that somebody is probably the last person you should ask."

Candida laughed. "That's true… everybody lies… the only thing you have to watch for is what they lie about."

Bonnie however, had begun to think of something else. "What if this is punishment? What I had this coming to me? You know, for… for the drugs, and running out, and… and I'm just doomed to have a crappy life?"

"Everybody does stupid things. It shouldn't cost them everything they want in their lives. You want to make things right? Well that's a nice notion, Bonnie, but nothing's ever right."

"I don't believe that."

"And that wouldn't be so bad if the universe was a just and fair place."

"I just… I don't know. I feel like…"

"On average, drug addicts are stupid. You don't seem to be stupid, or even addicted, to me…"

"I screwed up my life."

"You made a mistake. One mistake."

"Mistakes are just as big as the results that follow them."

"You wanted to make things better."

"I only tried after I ran away from my problems in the first place. I'm just a coward."

"So? You were going to do it… you weren't just talking about it, you were actually going to do it."

"But I didn't."

"Because you didn't get the chance."

"Because I made that mistake in the first place."

"You're not being punished. You're just making that assumption because you want to be miserable. You don't like yourself… but you're all you have. You're afraid to go back home because your sister hurt you. You don't want to go to your friends because you're afraid that they'll hate you for what you did. Being miserable doesn't make you different, Bonnie. It doesn't make your life better. You've got stuck in a moment you can't get out of…"

Bonnie remained silent, and stared ahead, thinking about what Candida had just said.

"The world sucks today just as much as it did yesterday, Bonnie. And it's going to suck just as much tomorrow. If you're going to make things better for yourself, you're going to have to take some action. If you want to change something, then do something. If you want everything to stay the same, then just sit on your ass and watch life from the sidelines."

Bonnie chuckled to herself. "You're absolutely right…"

"Well obviously. But that's not any reason to stop thinking."

Bonnie looked up at her. "I think I want to tell you what happened…"

Candida nodded and slowly sat down next to her.


	31. thanksgiving

At the time Bonnie was visiting Laura, Keely was driving around town, looking for her.

"No, Mom, I haven't seen her anywhere," Keely said into her cell phone. "…Nobody I've talked to has seen her… I tried, she doesn't have her cell phone on… either that or she never took it with her in the first place… I've been all over t-… well I haven't checked there, but I don't think she knows anybody there… I… okay, I'll check anyway, but… okay. I'm headed there now… bye…"

"So which way do I go…?" Keely muttered to herself as she approached an intersection. "I don't even know where I am…"

She looked ahead and saw the police station at the corner. Finally recognizing where she was, she pulled into the left lane to make a U-turn.

Sure enough, after making a patrol of the north end of town, Keely still found nothing. She sighed. Nobody had called her at all, saying they had seen her sister, or even had a clue where she might have been.

On the drive home, Keely was talking to her mother on the phone again. "Well, no, I didn't see her. Nobody's called, huh? …Figured as much… I've been all over, been every place she might have been at, haven't seen her anywhere… none of her friends have seen her… ohh, this is all my fault… no, Mom, it is! I don't… I don't care, it is! You know what I said to her… She ran away because of me, and all because of me… Yes, I do know that, Mom… Well what else would have made her run out crying like that, right after I told her that? It's… it's my fault. I never should have… ugh. I don't want to even think about it. I don't want to think about what… what… bye."

Keely shuddered as she hung up the phone.

"What the hell did I do to you, Bonnie…" she muttered.

She eventually arrived home and sat at the table. She sighed in disappointment and tossed her keys onto the empty table. She felt sick.

"This isn't your fault," her mother said, after she came into the room and sat down next to her.

"Of course it is. Who else would be to blame?"

"Don't beat yourself up like this."

"Everything we do, every action we make, it's all directed by a motive. She got drunk because she was depressed about Ashley, she and Ph… she made that mistake because she was drunk… She told me because it was eating at her, and I just… blew up at her. I blew up at her, then I completely ignored the fact that she existed… She hated that I wasn't talking to her, so she tried to talk to me, but… I was just too… too… I didn't want to forgive her. And she ran off because I didn't. If I had listened… actually listened to her, she wouldn't be out there." Angrily fighting back tears, Keely pointed to the window. "She wouldn't believe that I don't love her, so she wouldn't be running away… what did I do to her…"

Keely sighed and stood up. "I… don't… I'm gonna try and go sleep for a while…" she explained, knowing perfectly well she wouldn't be able to do so.

"Okay, hon," Mandy said, looking around the empty house.

"Worst holiday. Ever," Keely muttered to herself as she ran upstairs.


	32. thanksgetting

"I hope I didn't, like… ruin your Thanksgiving or anything…" Bonnie said, as she walked to Candida's car.

"Eh, my parents wouldn't have been home for dinner… she works the night shift, and he's a doctor… he got called in, anyway, so… don't worry about it. We were going to celebrate tomorrow anyway… your family, though…"

Bonnie sighed. "I know, I know…"

As she revved up the engine, Candida asked, "Do you want to go home?"

"Um… I don't know…"

"Maybe I should rephrase… do you think you _should_ go home?"

"I do… still doesn't mean I want to, though…"

"I understand…"

"Take me home," Bonnie sighed, eventually. "10 Caulfield…"

"Alright…" Candida sighed, and pulled out of the parking lot.

"Um… I know this may be asking… too much, but… could you… could you be there when I tell them what happened?" she asked in a timid voice.

"Um… I guess I could…"

"Could you do it tonight?"

"I dunno… I mean…"

"Don't play the tired card on me, now. I haven't slept in two days."

"I… I guess I could, if you really… want me to…"

Bonnie smiled. "Thanks…"

She sat back, and wondered how her family would react when she came home. She played dozens of scenes through her head, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

It was past midnight when they pulled onto Bonnie's street. "I can't do this," she panicked. "I can't. Turn back. Turn around. I don't want to do this. I can't go back, I can't. She hates me. And she must have told Ma by now, and she's gonna be so disappointed… I can't do this. I can't--"

"Shut up!" Candida barked. Bonnie did just that. "Stop feeling sorry for yourself! You said yourself you tried to make things better! Now you have another chance to do that!" She pulled over in front of the Teslow house. At this point, it was nearing three o'clock in the morning. "You wanted a chance to make yourself feel good. Now it's staring you in the face, and you want to run away again."

Bonnie sat in silence, staring at her hands folded in her lap. After a while, she squeaked, "Do you think he regrets it?"

"What?"

"The guy who did this to me… do you think he…"

"Do I think he feels bad for what he did to you? Why? Would that make you feel better, knowing that he's feeling remorse for what he did?"

"Why can't you just answer the questions I ask you?"

"Because I'm not interested in how he feels. I'm talking to you, not him. And right now, it seems like you're just trying to make yourself unhappy. You made a mistake, and you paid a price. News flash, Bonnie! That happens to everybody. Don't put yourself through it again."

Bonnie nodded and eventually opened the door. She headed to the door, though her feet protested. She dimly thought how crazy this whole idea was, and how she should just run for it, but before she knew it, her hand was on the doorknob.

Surprisingly, she found it to be unlocked.

She slipped inside and stood next to the door, while Candida came in after her and quietly shut the door.

"This is crazy," Bonnie muttered, shaking her head. "Why am I doing this?"

"I'm going to assume that was a rhetorical question…" Candida replied. "Come on. Go up there."

"Oh, but they're asleep…"

"Hm. Okay, that makes sense. You'd rather have them sleep through the night, wondering if their daughter will ever come back or even be seen alive again than go up and wake them up to let them know you're safe. Makes sense to me."

"Glad to hear it, let's go." Bonnie headed for the door, but Candida grabbed onto her arm.

"Don't think so."

"You're making this really difficult."

"You're making it difficult on yourself," Candida said.

However, the commotion downstairs had caught Keely's attention, since she hadn't been able to sleep. Lurking at the top of the stairs, she saw two girls near the front door, one of whom she recognized as her sister. She smiled, ran down the stairs, and threw herself at her.

"Um… hello," Bonnie said, rather awkwardly.

"You're safe…" Keely whispered, gratefully. "I was so worried…"

Bonnie blinked a few times, and eventually, half-heartedly, hugged her sister back.

"Bonnie… you had me worried sick! You… hello," Keely said, remembering that there was another person in the room.

"Um… yeah," Candida said, scratching the back of her neck. "Forget I'm here."

"I'm so sorry, Bonbon," Keely gushed. "I never meant any of what I said… I was just… stupid. God, I'm just… so happy you're okay…"

Candida shook her head.

"Keely, I…"

"You have no idea how scared I was… I didn't know if you were ever going to come back… I was afraid that-"

"Keely."

"…What?"

"Last night, after I ran out, I went to Jocelyn's house…"

"But… she said she hadn't--"

"I know what she said. I made her lie to you. I didn't want to talk to you then… but after a while, I realized that I had to come back here… so a few hours after I got there, I decided I was going to head back… but…"

"But…?"

"But… when I was heading back… I got raped…"

"… What?" Keely asked in disbelief.

"I… maybe you should go get Ma… I don't want to say this twice…"

Keely slowly nodded, and ran upstairs.


	33. euphoria

"Anyway, you should go," Bonnie said to Candida, after finishing telling her family of the details of the past two days.

"Right…" Candida said. Before getting out of their house, Mandy and Keely each thanked her for helping Bonnie. "Really, I didn't do anything," she protested, "but, you're welcome anyway…"

"So, Bonnie," Keely said, after the door shut as Candida left.

"Please, Keely… I'll answer your questions, but… I haven't slept in forty-eight hours… please…"

"Oh… okay, sorry…" Keely said, abashedly.

While Candida walked down the front walk of the Teslow house, Phil and his family were approaching the house, upon his mother's suggestion. Pim gave Candida an evil glare, but Candida didn't even so much as pay attention to Pim.

Somebody knocked at the door just as Bonnie was about to head upstairs. Keely opened the door and smiled. "Hey, Phil," she greeted perkily. Phil smiled back stupidly. "Uh, you guys can come in…"

"We just wanted to, um…" Barbara trailed off as she saw Bonnie staring oddly at her, at the foot of the stairs. "Oh. Well I can see that, um…"

Mandy smiled and explained that Bonnie had come back just a few hours ago. Pim frowned and walked over to Bonnie. "Why was Candida here?"

"Because… she just was. Maybe one day I'll tell you. Not now."

"You were fraternizing with the enemy! I demand an explanation."

"I really don't understand what you have against her… she's a good person."

"No she's not! She's pure evil!"

Bonnie smiled, then said, "Yeah, okay. Gonna go get some sleep now… I'm having trouble understanding what you're even saying… then again, maybe that's my short attention sp…" Shaking her head, she headed up to her room to get some much-needed sleep.

Pim rolled her eyes. "Whatever."

Meanwhile, Phil and Keely had gone into a separate room to talk.

"So… so she came back, huh?" Phil asked, not really sure what to say.

"Yeah… just about three hours ago or so…"

"Wow… that's… that's really great for you… I can't even imagine how hard that must have been…"

Keely smiled. "I'm just glad she's back… that she's safe again…"

"Listen, I… I, um…"

Keely looked at Phil intently.

"I'm… I'm really happy for you," he finished with a chuckle.

Keely smiled in realization. "You were worried about her… don't worry, Phil, it's not weird or anything…"

"I just… I just didn't want to see you upset, that's all."

Keely beamed. "Thanks, Phil… you're too sweet."

Phil looked down, then slowly, weakly smiled.


	34. vive quasi cras moriturus

Three weeks later, Bonnie was walking with Jocelyn and Tory while at lunch. "I guess I'm not too worried about finals," Bonnie explained. "I don't think I'll do bad on any of them… I am a little worried about my English final, though… I'll probably end up forgetting half the stuff we need to know…"

"You'll do fine," Jocelyn said, pulling her jacket around herself tighter. "I know you will."

"I'm just glad we're talking about finals," Tory said, scratching his head. "That means the year's almost half over…"

"Yeah… and after finals, we have winter break…" Jocelyn smiled.

"Oh ho ho," Bonnie said, raising an eyebrow, "are you two planning a little something over the break?

"Might be," Jocelyn replied. "What business is it of yours?"

"Absolutely none, but I'm still going to pry."

"Why don't you go pry on the juicy details of some other relationship?"

"Because I'm interested in yours. Yours is really the only one I actually know about. You see, I cleverly have no personal life. This is all I do: ask about other people's lives and act as if it'll affect me somehow. And because I have no personal life, yours is really the only relationship I concern myself with."

Tory laughed. "That's pretty sad, you know."

"You guys are no fun…" Bonnie muttered, looking around. Across the field, she saw Candida walking with a few of her friends. "Okay, you get your wish for now, but don't start making out or something, because I'll be back in a few…" She headed over to the small group…

"I just don't get it," she explained to Candida, after the group around her scattered. "I mean, here we are, three weeks later… and I still don't feel better. I thought things would be getting back to normal, back to how they were a month ago… but I still feel like… I just don't feel the same. And everything in me says I _should_ be happy. I was perfectly healthy after what happened… I'm really lucky. And yet…"

"You're not happy…"

"Exactly. And I just… I don't understand why. I just… changed…"

"People don't change…" Candida muttered.

"Hm?"

"Nothing… just a little belief of mine."

"Mm. I just… I don't understand it. Keely's talking to me again… my life is just like it was before… so what's changed?"

"Your view of the world… there's a reason that we only care about our family and friends… if we cared about everybody, we wouldn't be able to function. You know people care about you, but you know that infinitely more people don't. It's always been that way. It just never really bothered you until now."

"I just don't… I don't know. I still don't feel the same."

"When was the last time you… partied?"

"Before Thanksgiving… wait, you think that's it? Because I stopped… or because I… haven't told anybody about that?"

"So you shot up a few times… telling everybody about it won't undo it."

"But… Keely, my mom, my friends… they think I'm somebody I'm not…"

"Who cares if you are what people think you are? Nobody is. If love is based on lies, does that void its legitimacy as a feeling? It still brings the same pleasure, doesn't it? Look, if you want to clear your conscience, thinking it'll make you feel better, then fine. But don't think you'll be able to do so without hurting the people you love. The world doesn't work a certain way because you want it to."

Bonnie frowned. "Damned if I do…"

"You're living under the delusion that anything that isn't perfect, you can make perfect. You hate when things aren't how you need them. Nothing in life is perfect."

"Can't always get what we want…"

"And we always want what we can't have…"

Bonnie kicked at the ground. Candida frowned as she saw Pim come over to them.

"Candida," Pim announced, "I just thought that I'd let you know that after winter break, you won't have to deal with me anymore."

Much to Pim's annoyance, Candida seemed unscathed by this remark. "How about that…"

"Yes. I'm moving… and I'll no longer have to deal with you."

"You're moving?" Bonnie asked, this having been the first time she had heard this news.

"Yep, New Year's Day… we're picking up and moving out. I must say, I'm a little disappointed, but… I guess you gotta do what you gotta do."

"Yeah…" Bonnie said. "You're absolutely right. Thanks." She gave Pim a pat on the shoulder and walked off.

That afternoon, Keely knocked urgently on Phil's door.

"Oh, hey, Keely," Phil greeted.

"Phil… is it true?" she asked, feebly.

Phil sighed. "I wanted to tell you myself… but I didn't know how to break the news to you… I'm sorry, Keely…"

Keely couldn't take this news. She broke down and cried, burying her head in his shoulder. "You can't be… you just can't…"

"I'm sorry, Keely… I didn't want to… I tried to talk him out of it, but… my dad said we had to. That we couldn't stay…"

"I… you…"

"I really am sorry… but… this is what I was talking about… how we had to savor our time together… cherish every last minute, while we still could…"

Keely sniffled and lifted her head to look into his eyes.

"To live life to the fullest… to live life as if we were going to die tomorrow… seize the day… you and me, Keels. We still have some time left… we just have to live in the moment."

Keely offered a small smile.


	35. turbulent

The week of finals came and passed. As the mental countdown in Keely's head approached closer and closer to zero, she and Phil spent more and more free time together. This left Bonnie at home, rather bored. On the Saturday after finals, the first day of winter, a rather bored Bonnie sat in her room, staring at her desk.

Three picture frames… one of them empty, one of them face-down, one of them standing upright…

Scrawled out notes in loopy handwriting, passed during class…

A various assortment of pens and pencils…

A half-filled notebook filled with sketches, poems, and lyrics…

Her mirror was still broken. She frowned, and looked at the picture of herself and Ashley. "_A ghost of you…_" she muttered to herself, placing the picture face-down on the desk, next to the other one. She grabbed all the papers, pens, and everything else on the desk, and put it into a drawer. She took the empty picture frame and put it in her closet. Brushing a strand of hair out of her eye, she looked back at the desk: two picture frames, both face-down.

She sat back on her bed, and sighed. She was bored… and depressed. Melancholy.

But then she remembered…

She rummaged through the back of her closet, until she found a small bag. She snickered to herself.

Sitting down at her now-cleared bench, she formed a line. Smirking devilishly, she felt her pockets for her wallet. After a fruitless search, she checked the desk drawer, to find that in her haste of clearing the desk, she had shoved her wallet in there as well. She pulled out a dollar bill and rolled it into a narrow tube.

After sniffing up the powder, she blinked a few times, then looked around at the floor around her desk. She picked up a small shard of broken mirror, looked at her reflection, and smiled.

Only a few minutes later, she began to feel a bit restless. She looked around her room, drumming her fingers on the desk, before springing up and whipping herself into a cleaning frenzy.

About an hour later, her entire room was spotless. Left with nothing else to do, she paced around the house for a while longer, before finally running out of energy and crashing on the couch.


	36. DNR

"Ooh, tough question," Jocelyn said. "I don't want to answer first! Ask Ally…"

Bonnie rolled her eyes, and turned to Jocelyn's cousin, who was in town for the holiday. "Okay… if _you_ could have one wish granted, what would it be?"

"Hm…" Ally pondered this question, her finger on her chin. "I guess I'd wish to meet the perfect guy for me, you know? Just settle down with somebody that's just… perfect…"

Jocelyn smiled. "I like that answer… I'm stealing it. I'd wish that me and Tory could stay together."

"Aww…" Ally gushed. "Isn't that cute? Anyway, what about you?"

Bonnie thought for a while. "I guess I'd wish to go back… go back and do it over… Not all of it, I guess. Just to revisit some stuff… like before Ash went off to the Marines… and just to change a few things…"

Jocelyn nodded. "Alright… I've got one. What's the one thing you want more than anything else in the world right now?"

"I want to be able to write music, and sell it all over…" Ally said, a wistful expression in her eyes. "What about you?"

"Me?" Jocelyn asked. "I want to be able to look back at my life when I'm older, and know that I really made a difference… know that it was really worth something…"

Bonnie nodded. "Right now… I just want happiness…"


	37. lux æterna

It was December 27th, and just four more days remained until Phil and his family moved away. Phil and Keely had requested that their families spend the majority of Christmas day together, and the families agreed to, so as to allow the two to spend more time in each other's company.

Bonnie walked down the sidewalk with Candida, talking of the night she had spent with Jocelyn and her cousin four nights prior. "They just seemed so… together, you know? They knew what they wanted from life… they really…"

"What did they want from life?"

"Well, I mean, they had really specific goals. Joss said she wanted to know her life had an impact on the world, or at least on some lives… her cousin wanted to write music, to… to have it heard around the world, so people could listen to what she was feeling…"

"What did you want?"

"I said I wanted to be happy…"

"That doesn't make much sense to me… If you want to be happy, if you make happiness a goal you strive for, it's not going to be lasting happiness… You would have been doing whatever it is that makes you happy just for the express purpose of feeling the effect afterwards… Think of it this way: if you said your goal was to climb Mount Everest, at some point in your life, you would be able to ask yourself, 'Did I climb Mount Everest?' And if you said yes, then you would be happy, because you met your goal… but if your goal was to be happy, at some point, you would ask yourself, 'Am I happy?' …But because you had to ask yourself if you were happy, you would automatically know that you weren't, because if you were, you wouldn't have to ask yourself. If you set happiness as a goal, you'll never be happy."

Bonnie blinked. "I never… looked at it that way… I guess it's silly of me to wish to attain the unattainable… there's no point in wishing to go back in time, or something like that… it will never happen…"

"Once you stop living in the past… you can finally start to make your life better…"

"Yeah… just need to make my life better…"

"You believe in an afterlife… just try to live up to the moral standard that's set for you. Set a positive goal…"

"What do you believe in? Do you believe in an afterlife? A God?"

Candida sighed. "I believe that the white light that people sometimes see on the verge of death… that it's all just chemical reactions in the brain while it's shutting down…"

"And you… choose to believe that?"

"There's no conclusive science to it… I just choose what I find comforting. My choice has no practical meaning to my existence…"

"You find it more comforting to believe that nothing comes after this?"

"I just find it more comforting to believe that my whole life isn't just a test for some greater glory."

Bonnie nodded in understanding.


	38. Winter

_**All around me are familiar faces  
Worn out places, worn out faces**_

Keely looked around Phil's empty room. "It feels so… weird…"

"I know… like an empty vessel. Almost haunting, really," Phil said.

"Come on, Phil," his dad called solemnly from downstairs. "We gotta go."

_**Bright and early for their daily races  
Going nowhere, going nowhere**_

It was approximately five minutes from 2008 as Phil walked down the stairs for the final time in his house on Caulfield Lane. He walked outside into the brisk winter air, and heaved a heavy sigh. "I guess this is good-… I guess this is it," he said, unable to bring himself to say goodbye to her.

"Yeah," Keely said, fighting back tears.

Phil hugged her, and she rested her head on his shoulder, still blinking back any tears that threatened to come. "I'll think of you every day," he promised her. "I love you."

_**And their tears are filling up their glasses  
No expression, no expression  
**_

That did it. She couldn't help but let the tears flow. "I love you, too, Phil," she whispered. He pulled out of the hug and handed her a small box.

"Open it when you get back," Phil whispered into her ear, leaning over, then giving her one last kiss.

"Oh, Phil," she whispered sadly, as he climbed into the time machine. She gave a feeble smile and waved as he put his hand on the handle of the door. She cleared her throat out and called, "Good-… Goodnight, Phil…" She just couldn't manage to say goodbye.

"Goodnight, Keely," he whispered, hoping against all odds that maybe this wasn't goodbye forever.

He shut the door, and amidst a flash of orange light…

…he was gone.

_**Hide my face I want to drown my sorrow  
No tomorrow, no tomorrow**_

Keely went into her room, and threw herself onto her stomach, on her bed. She looked at the small box Phil had given to her, and wondered dimly what could be inside. Deciding she had no clue what it could possibly be, she opened it.

"Oh… Phil," she said, smiling, looking at what lay inside the box. "Of course you would think of that…"

She smiled serenely, and put the gift next to her bed. While admiring it, she drifted off to sleep.

"_You taught me a lot, Keely…" Phil explained to her. "I've learned a lot by time traveling… like that you have to treasure every moment you have, because you never know when a wonderful girl like you will end up turning your world completely upside-down."_

_Keely smiled at Phil. She then noticed that he was dressed in a tuxedo. She smiled as she realized she was in a very spacious ballroom, and observed that she herself was dressed in an elegant red dress._

"_Would you care to dance, Keely?" he asked, extending his arm to her._

"_I'd love to," she responded, taking his hand. "But there's no music…"_

"_There's music," Phil responded. "She just hasn't started playing yet."_

_Keely looked around the room, and saw a lone violinist standing in the distance. A soft, peaceful melody began to play, and although Keely couldn't see her face, she knew it was Bonnie playing._

_She and Phil began to dance._

Keely pulled the blankets tighter around herself, as a small smile creeped onto her face.

While Phil was saying goodbye to Keely, up in her room, Bonnie was curled on her bed in the fetal position. Her heater had broken, and she was having difficulties getting to sleep, even bundled in all the blankets.

However, when a flash of orange light came from outside, she was surprised to find herself feeling relaxed by it. She didn't know what it was, but it seemed to clear her mind.

She actually felt a little bit better.

She wondered why that was, but barely had time to think about it, as she fell asleep soon after seeing it.

She dreamed of a distant, lazy summer's day…

"_Why would you want to travel to Jakarta?" Ashley laughed. "You don__'__t speak Indonesian."_

"_Well, really, I__'__d like to travel anywhere in the Pacific," Bonnie replied, lying in the shade of a large tree._

"_Okay, I gotcha. You just wanna meet some hot hunk on the beach,__" Ashley snickered._

"_Well now you're just mocking me, and that hurts," Bonnie joked._

"_Would you two shut your traps for half a minute?" Keely asked, smiling. "I'm trying to fall asleep here…"_

"_Why are you trying to sleep?" Ashley asked, full of energy. "The day is young! The possibilities are endless! Summer days like this are made for girls like you, Keely! Don't waste it by sleeping it away! Come on!" Ashley jumped up. "Buy postcards of places you__'__ve never been to, go waterskiing, anything! Carpe diem!__"_

Bonnie shifted slightly in her sleep, and smiled.

**_And I find it kind of funny  
I find it kind of sad  
The dreams in which I'm dying  
Are the best I've ever had...  
_**

* * *

**_"Mad World" - R. Orzabal  
_**

* * *

**Well, it's been quite a ride. But that's all for this one... (_throws sulfur into the fire_) I may return again... someday. Until then... (_disappears dramatically in a puff of smoke_)**

**(_laughs as I run out the back door_)_  
_**


End file.
